Execution of the Romanov royal family. The mistake of Nicholas II and the execution of the Romanov family

Execution of the royal family(former Russian Emperor Nicholas II and his family) was carried out in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in pursuance of the resolution of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, headed by the Bolsheviks. Along with the royal family, members of her retinue were also shot.

Most modern historians agree that the fundamental decision to execute Nicholas II was made in Moscow (they usually point to the leaders Soviet Russia Sverdlov and Lenin). However, there is no unity among modern historians on the questions of whether sanction was given for the execution of Nicholas II without trial (which actually happened), and whether sanction was given for the execution of the entire family.

There is also no consensus among lawyers about whether the execution was sanctioned by the top Soviet leadership. If forensic expert Yu. Zhuk considers it an undeniable fact that the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council acted in accordance with the instructions of the top officials of the Soviet state, then the senior investigator for particularly important cases of the SKP Russian Federation V. N. Solovyov, who since 1993 led the investigation into the circumstances of the murder of the royal family, in his interviews in 2008-2011 claimed that the execution of Nicholas II and his family was carried out without the sanction of Lenin and Sverdlov.

Since before the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia on October 1, 2008, it was believed that the Ural Regional Council was not a judicial or other body that had the authority to pass a verdict, the events described for a long time were considered from a legal point of view not as political repression, but as murder, which prevented posthumous rehabilitation of Nicholas II and his family.

The remains of five members of the imperial family, as well as their servants, were found in July 1991 near Yekaterinburg under the embankment of the Old Koptyakovskaya Road. During the investigation into the criminal case, which was conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, the remains were identified. On July 17, 1998, the remains of members of the imperial family were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. In July 2007, the remains of Tsarevich Alexei and Grand Duchess Maria were found.

Background

As a result of the February Revolution, Nicholas II abdicated the throne and, together with his family, was under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo. As A.F. Kerensky testified, when he, the Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government, just 5 days after the abdication, stood up to the podium of the Moscow Council, he was showered with a hail of shouts from the place demanding the execution of Nicholas II. He wrote in his memoirs: “The death penalty for Nicholas II and the sending of his family from the Alexander Palace to the Peter and Paul Fortress or Kronstadt - these were the furious, sometimes frantic demands of hundreds of all kinds of delegations, deputations and resolutions that appeared and presented them to the Provisional Government...”. In August 1917, Nicholas II and his family, by decision of the Provisional Government, were exiled to Tobolsk.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, at the beginning of 1918, the Soviet government discussed a proposal to hold an open trial of Nicholas II. Historian Latyshev writes that the idea of ​​​​trial Nicholas II was supported by Trotsky, but Lenin expressed doubts about the timeliness of such a trial. According to the People's Commissar of Justice Steinberg, the issue was postponed for an indefinite period, which never came.

According to historian V.M. Khrustalev, by the spring of 1918, the Bolshevik leaders had developed a plan to gather all representatives of the Romanov dynasty in the Urals, where they would be kept at a considerable distance from external dangers in the form of the German Empire and the Entente, and on the other hand, the Bolsheviks , who have strong political positions here, could keep the situation with the Romanovs under their control. In such a place, as the historian wrote, the Romanovs could be destroyed by finding a suitable reason for this. In April - May 1918, Nicholas II, together with his relatives, was taken under guard from Tobolsk to the “red capital of the Urals” - Yekaterinburg - where by that time other representatives of the imperial house of Romanov were already located. It was here in mid-July 1918, in the context of the rapid advance of anti-Soviet forces (the Czechoslovak Corps and the Siberian Army) approaching Yekaterinburg (and actually capturing it eight days later), the massacre of the royal family was carried out.

As one of the reasons for the execution, local Soviet authorities cited the discovery of a certain conspiracy, allegedly aimed at the release of Nicholas II. However, according to the recollections of members of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka I. I. Rodzinsky and M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), this conspiracy was in fact a provocation organized by the Ural Bolsheviks in order, according to modern researchers, to obtain grounds for extrajudicial reprisals.

Course of events

Link to Yekaterinburg

Historian A.N. Bokhanov writes that there are many hypotheses as to why the tsar and his family were transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg and whether he intended to flee; at the same time, A. N. Bokhanov considers it a definitely established fact that the move to Yekaterinburg stemmed from the Bolsheviks’ desire to tighten the regime and prepare for the liquidation of the tsar and his family.

At the same time, the Bolsheviks did not represent a homogeneous force.

On April 1, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to transfer the royal family to Moscow. The Ural authorities, who categorically objected to this decision, proposed to transfer her to Yekaterinburg. Perhaps as a result of the confrontation between Moscow and the Urals, a new decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 6, 1918 appeared, according to which all those arrested were sent to the Urals. Ultimately, the decisions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee boiled down to orders to prepare an open trial of Nicholas II and to move the royal family to Yekaterinburg. Vasily Yakovlev, specially authorized by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, was entrusted with organizing this move, whom Sverdlov knew well from joint revolutionary work during the years of the first Russian revolution.

Commissar Vasily Yakovlev (Myachin), sent from Moscow to Tobolsk, headed a secret mission to transport the royal family to Yekaterinburg with the aim of subsequently transporting it to Moscow. Due to the illness of the son of Nicholas II, it was decided to leave all the children, except Maria, in Tobolsk in the hope of reuniting with them later.

On April 26, 1918, the Romanovs, guarded by machine gunners, left Tobolsk, and on April 27 in the evening they arrived in Tyumen. On April 30, a train from Tyumen arrived in Yekaterinburg, where Yakovlev handed over the imperial couple and daughter Maria to the head of the Urals Council A.G. Beloborodov. Together with the Romanovs, Prince V.A. Dolgorukov, E.S. Botkin, A.S. Demidova, T.I. Chemodurov, I.D. Sednev arrived in Yekaterinburg.

There is evidence that during the move of Nicholas II from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, the leadership of the Ural region tried to assassinate him. Beloborodov later wrote in his unfinished memoirs:

According to P. M. Bykov, at the 4th Ural Regional Conference of the RCP(b), which was taking place at that time in Yekaterinburg, “in a private meeting, the majority of local delegates spoke out for the need for the speedy execution of the Romanovs” in order to prevent attempts to restore the monarchy in Russia.

The confrontation that arose during the move from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg between the detachments sent from Yekaterinburg and Yakovlev, who became aware of the intention of the Urals to destroy Nicholas II, was resolved only through negotiations with Moscow, which were conducted by both sides. Moscow, represented by Sverdlov, demanded from the Ural leadership guarantees for the safety of the royal family, and only after they were given, Sverdlov confirmed the order previously given to Yakovlev to take the Romanovs to the Urals.

On May 23, 1918, the remaining children of Nicholas II arrived in Yekaterinburg, accompanied by a group of servants and retinue officials. A. E. Trupp, I. M. Kharitonov, I. D. Sednev’s nephew Leonid Sednev and K. G. Nagorny were allowed into Ipatiev’s house.

Immediately upon arrival in Yekaterinburg, the security officers arrested four people from among the persons accompanying the royal children: the Tsar’s adjutant Prince I.L. Tatishchev, Alexandra Fedorovna’s valet A.A. Volkov, her maid of honor Princess A.V. Gendrikova and the court lecturer E. A. Schneider. Tatishchev and Prince Dolgorukov, who arrived in Yekaterinburg along with the royal couple, were shot in Yekaterinburg. After the execution of the royal family, Gendrikova, Schneider and Volkov were transferred to Perm due to the evacuation of Yekaterinburg. There they were sentenced by the Cheka authorities to execution as hostages; On the night of September 3-4, 1918, Gendrikova and Schneider were shot, Volkov managed to escape straight from the place of execution.

According to the work of Communist P.M. Bykov, a participant in the events, Prince Dolgorukov, who, according to Bykov, behaved suspiciously, was found to have two maps of Siberia with the designation of waterways and “some special notes,” as well as a significant amount of money. His testimony convinced that he intended to organize the escape of the Romanovs from Tobolsk.

Most of the remaining members of the retinue were ordered to leave the Perm province. The heir's doctor, V.N. Derevenko, was allowed to stay in Yekaterinburg as a private person and examine the heir twice a week under the supervision of Avdeev, the commandant of the Ipatiev house.

Imprisonment in Ipatiev's house

The Romanov family was placed in a “special purpose house” - the requisitioned mansion of retired military engineer N. N. Ipatiev. Doctor E. S. Botkin, chamberlain A. E. Trupp, the Empress' maid A. S. Demidova, cook I. M. Kharitonov and cook Leonid Sednev lived here with the Romanov family.

The house is nice and clean. We were assigned four rooms: a corner bedroom, a restroom, next to it a dining room with windows into the garden and a view of the low-lying part of the city, and, finally, a spacious hall with an arch without doors.<…> We were accommodated as follows: Alix [the Empress], Maria and the three of me in the bedroom, a shared restroom, in the dining room - N[yuta] Demidova, in the hall - Botkin, Chemodurov and Sednev. Near the entrance is the room of the guard officer. The guard was located in two rooms near the dining room. To go to the bathroom and W.C. [water closet], you need to pass by the sentry at the door of the guardroom. A very high board fence was built around the house, two fathoms from the windows; there was a chain of sentries there, and in the kindergarten too.

The royal family spent 78 days in their last home.

A.D. Avdeev was appointed commandant of the “special purpose house”.

Investigator Sokolov, who was entrusted by A.V. Kolchak in February 1919 to continue conducting the case of the murder of the Romanovs, was able to recreate a picture of the last months of the life of the royal family with the remnants of their retinue in Ipatiev’s house. In particular, Sokolov reconstructed the system of posts and their placement, and compiled a list of external and internal security.

One of the sources for investigator Sokolov was the testimony of the miraculously surviving member of the royal retinue, valet T.I. Chemodurov, who stated that “in the Ipatiev House, the regime was extremely difficult, and the attitude of the guards was downright outrageous.” Not fully trusting his testimony ( “I admitted that Chemodurov might not have been completely frank in his testimony to the authorities, and found out what he told other people about life in the Ipatiev House”), Sokolov double-checked them through the former head of the royal guard Kobylinsky, valet Volkov, as well as Gilliard and Gibbs. Sokolov also studied the testimony of some other former members of the royal retinue, including Pierre Gilliard, a French teacher originally from Switzerland. Gilliard himself was transported by the Latvian Svikke (Rodionov) to Yekaterinburg with the remaining royal children, but he was not placed in Ipatiev’s house.

In addition, after Yekaterinburg fell into the hands of the whites, some of the former guards of Ipatiev's house were found and interrogated, including Suetin, Latypov and Letemin. Detailed testimony was given by former security guard Proskuryakov and former guard guard Yakimov.

According to T. I. Chemodurov, immediately upon the arrival of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna at Ipatiev’s house, they were subjected to a search, and “one of those who carried out the search snatched the reticule from the hands of the Empress and caused the Sovereign to remark: “Until now I have dealt with honest and decent people."

The former head of the royal guard, Kobylinsky, according to Chemodurov, said: “a bowl was placed on the table; there were not enough spoons, knives, forks; Red Army soldiers also took part in the dinner; someone will come and reach into the bowl: “Well, that’s enough for you.” The princesses slept on the floor, since they did not have beds. A roll call was arranged. When the princesses went to the restroom, the Red Army soldiers, ostensibly on guard duty, followed them...” Witness Yakimov (who was leading the guard during the events) said that the guards sang songs “which, of course, were not pleasant for the Tsar”: “Together, comrades, in step,” “Let’s renounce the old world,” etc. Investigator Sokolov also writes that “the Ipatiev house itself speaks more eloquently than any words, how the prisoners lived here. Unusual in their cynicism, inscriptions and images with a constant theme: about Rasputin.” To top it all off, according to the testimony of witnesses interviewed by Sokolov, the working boy Faika Safonov defiantly sang obscene ditties right under the windows of the royal family.

Sokolov very negatively characterizes some of the guards of Ipatiev’s house, calling them “propagandaized scum from among the Russian people,” and the first commandant of Ipatiev’s house, Avdeev, “the most prominent representative of these scum of the working environment: a typical rally loudmouth, extremely clueless, deeply ignorant, a drunkard and a thief”.

There are also reports of the theft of royal belongings by guards. The guards also stole food sent to the arrested person by the nuns of the Novo-Tikhvin Convent.

Richard Pipes writes that the thefts of the royal property that began could not but worry Nicholas and Alexandra, since, among other things, there were boxes with their personal letters and diaries in the barn. In addition, writes Pipes, there are many stories about the rude treatment of members of the royal family by the guards: that the guards could afford to enter the princesses’ rooms at any time of the day, that they took away food and even that they pushed the former king. " Although such stories are not unfounded, they are much exaggerated. The commandant and the guards undoubtedly behaved rudely, but there is no evidence to support open abuse.“The amazing calm with which Nikolai and his family endured the hardships of captivity, noted by a number of authors, is explained by Pipes as a sense of self-esteem and “ fatalism rooted in their deep religiosity».

Provocation. Letters from an “Officer of the Russian Army”

On June 17, those arrested were informed that the nuns of the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery were allowed to deliver eggs, milk and cream to their table. As R. Pipes writes, on June 19 or 20, the royal family discovered a note in the cork of one of the bottles with cream: French:

Friends are not asleep and hope that the hour they have been waiting for so long has come. The Czechoslovak uprising poses an increasingly serious threat to the Bolsheviks. Samara, Chelyabinsk and all of eastern and western Siberia are under the control of the national Provisional Government. The friendly army of the Slavs is already eighty kilometers from Yekaterinburg, the resistance of the Red Army soldiers is unsuccessful. Be attentive to everything that happens outside, wait and hope. But at the same time, I beg you, be careful, because the Bolsheviks, while they have not yet been defeated, they pose a real and serious danger to you. Be ready at all times, day and night. Make a drawing your two rooms: location, furniture, beds. Write down the exact hour when you all go to bed. One of you must stay awake from 2 to 3 every night from now on. Answer in a few words, but please give the necessary information to your friends outside. Give the answer to the same soldier who will give you this note, in writing, but don't say a word. The one who is ready to die for you. Russian Army officer.

Original note Les amis ne dorment plus et espèrent que l'heure si longtemps attendue est arrivée. La révolte des tschekoslovaques menace les bolcheviks de plus en plus sérieusement. Samara, Tschelabinsk et toute la Sibirie orientale et occidentale est au pouvoir de gouvernement national provisoir. L'armée des amis slaves est à quatre-vingt kilometres d'Ekaterinbourg, les soldats de l armée rouge ne résistent pas efficassement. Soyez attentifs au tout mouvement de dehors, attendez et esperez. Mais en meme temps, je vous supplie, soyez prudents, parce que les bolcheviks avant d’etre vaincus represent pour vous le peril réel et serieux. Soyez prêts toutes les heures, la journée et la nuit. Faite le croquis des vos deux chambres, les places, des meubles, des lits. Écrivez bien l'heure quant vous allez coucher vous tous. L un de vous ne doit dormir de 2 à 3 heure toutes les nuits qui suivent. Répondez par quelques mots mais donnez, je vous en prie, tous les renseignements utiles pour vos amis de dehors. C’est au meme soldat qui vous transmet cette note qu’il faut donner votre reponse par écrit mais pas un seul mot. Un qui est prêt à mourir pour vous L'officier de l'armée Russe.

In the diary of Nicholas II, there even appears an entry dated June 14 (27), which reads: “The other day we received two letters, one after the other, [in which] we were informed that we should prepare to be kidnapped by some loyal people!” The research literature mentions four letters from the “officer” and the Romanovs’ responses to them.

In the third letter, received on June 26, the “Russian officer” asked to be on alert and wait for a signal. On the night of June 26-27, the royal family did not go to bed, “they stayed awake dressed.” In Nikolai’s diary there is an entry that “the waiting and uncertainty were very painful.”

We do not want and cannot RUN. We can only be kidnapped by force, just as we were brought from Tobolsk by force. Therefore, do not count on any active help from us. The commandant has many assistants, they change frequently and have become restless. They guard our prison and our lives vigilantly and treat us well. We wouldn't want them to suffer because of us or for you to suffer for us. Most importantly, for God's sake, avoid shedding blood. Collect information about them yourself. It is absolutely impossible to go down from the window without the help of a ladder. But even if we go down, there remains a huge danger, because the window of the commandant’s room is open and on the lower floor, the entrance to which leads from the yard, there is a machine gun. [Strikethrough: “Therefore, abandon the thought of kidnapping us.”] If you are watching us, you can always try to save us in case of imminent and real danger. We have absolutely no idea what is happening outside, since we do not receive any newspapers or letters. After they allowed us to open the window, the surveillance intensified and we cannot even stick our heads out of the window without the risk of getting a bullet in the face.

Richard Pipes draws attention to obvious oddities in this correspondence: the anonymous “Russian officer” was clearly supposed to be a monarchist, but addressed the Tsar as “vous” instead of “Your Majesty” ( "Votre Majesté"), and it is unclear how the monarchists could slip letters into traffic jams. The memoirs of the first commandant of the Ipatiev house, Avdeev, have been preserved, who reports that the security officers allegedly found the real author of the letter, the Serbian officer Magic. In reality, as Richard Pipes emphasizes, there was no Magic in Yekaterinburg. There was indeed a Serbian officer with a similar surname in the city, Micic Jarko Konstantinovich, but it is known that he arrived in Yekaterinburg only on July 4, when most of the correspondence had already ended.

The declassification of the memories of participants in the events in 1989-1992 finally clarified the picture of the mysterious letters of the unknown “Russian officer”. Participant in the execution M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) admitted that the correspondence was a provocation organized by the Ural Bolsheviks in order to test the readiness of the royal family to flee. After the Romanovs, according to Medvedev, spent two or three nights dressed, such readiness became obvious to him.

The author of the text was P. L. Voikov, who lived for some time in Geneva (Switzerland). The letters were copied out completely by I. Rodzinsky, since he had better handwriting. Rodzinsky himself states in his memoirs that “ my handwriting is in these documents».

Replacing Commandant Avdeev with Yurovsky

On July 4, 1918, the protection of the royal family was transferred to a member of the board of the Ural Regional Cheka, Ya. M. Yurovsky. Some sources mistakenly call Yurovsky the chairman of the Cheka; in fact, this position was held by F.N. Lukoyanov.

An employee of the regional Cheka, G. P. Nikulin, became the assistant commandant of the “special purpose house”. The former commandant Avdeev and his assistant Moshkin were removed, Moshkin (and, according to some sources, also Avdeev) was imprisoned for theft.

At the first meeting with Yurovsky, the tsar mistook him for a doctor, since he advised the doctor V.N. Derevenko to put a plaster cast on the heir’s leg; Yurovsky was mobilized in 1915 and, according to N. Sokolov, graduated from paramedic school.

Investigator N.A. Sokolov explained the replacement of commandant Avdeev by the fact that communication with prisoners changed something in his “drunken soul,” which became noticeable to his superiors. When, according to Sokolov, preparations began for the execution of those in the special purpose house, Avdeev’s security was removed as unreliable.

Yurovsky described his predecessor Avdeev extremely negatively, accusing him of “decay, drunkenness, theft”: “there is a mood of complete debauchery and laxity all around,” “Avdeev, addressing Nikolai, calls him Nikolai Alexandrovich. He offers him a cigarette, Avdeev takes it, they both light a cigarette, and this immediately showed me the established “simplicity of morals.”

Yurovsky’s brother Leiba, interviewed by Sokolov, described Ya. M. Yurovsky as follows: “Yankel’s character is quick-tempered and persistent. I studied watchmaking with him and I know his character: he loves to oppress people.” According to Leia, the wife of another brother of Yurovsky (Ele), Ya. M. Yurovsky is very persistent and despotic, and his characteristic phrase was: “Whoever is not with us is against us.” At the same time, as Richard Pipes points out, soon after his appointment, Yurovsky harshly suppressed the theft that had spread under Avdeev. Richard Pipes considers this action advisable from a security point of view, since guards prone to theft could be bribed, including for the purpose of escape; as a result, for some time the contents of those arrested even improved, since the theft of food from the Novo-Tikhvin Monastery stopped. In addition, Yurovsky compiles an inventory of all the jewelry in the possession of the arrested (according to the historian R. Pipes - except for those that the women secretly sewed into their underwear); They place the jewelry in a sealed box, which Yurovsky gives to them for safekeeping. Indeed, in the tsar’s diary there is an entry dated June 23 (July 6), 1918:

At the same time, Yurovsky’s unceremoniousness soon began to irritate the tsar, who noted in his diary that “we like this type less and less.” Alexandra Fedorovna described Yurovsky in her diary as a “vulgar and unpleasant” person. However, Richard Pipes notes:

Last days

Bolshevik sources preserve evidence that the “working masses” of the Urals expressed concern about the possibility of the release of Nicholas II and even demanded his immediate execution. Doctor of Historical Sciences G. Z. Ioffe believes that this evidence is probably true, and characterizes the situation that was then not only in the Urals. As an example, he cites the text of a telegram from the Kolomna district committee of the Bolshevik Party, received by the Council of People's Commissars on July 3, 1918, with the message that the local party organization “unanimously decided to demand from the Council of People’s Commissars the immediate destruction of the entire family and relatives of the former tsar, because the German bourgeoisie, together with Russians are restoring the tsarist regime in the captured cities.” “In case of refusal,” it said, “it was decided to carry out this resolution on our own.” Joffe suggests that such resolutions coming from below were either organized at meetings and rallies, or were the result of general propaganda, an atmosphere filled with calls for class struggle and class revenge. The “lower classes” readily picked up slogans emanating from Bolshevik speakers, especially those representing the left wing of Bolshevism. Almost the entire Bolshevik elite in the Urals was leftist. According to the memoirs of the security officer I. Rodzinsky, among the leaders of the Ural Regional Council, the left communists were A. Beloborodov, G. Safarov and N. Tolmachev.

At the same time, the left Bolsheviks in the Urals had to compete in radicalism with the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, whose influence was significant. As Joffe writes, the Bolsheviks could not afford to give their political rivals a reason to accuse them of “sliding to the right.” And there were such accusations. Later, Spiridonova reproached the Bolshevik Central Committee for “dissolving the tsars and sub-tsars throughout... Ukraine, Crimea and abroad” and “only at the insistence of the revolutionaries,” that is, the left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists, raised his hand against Nikolai Romanov. According to A. Avdeev, in Yekaterinburg a group of anarchists tried to pass a resolution on the immediate execution of the former tsar. According to the recollections of Ural residents, extremists tried to organize an attack on Ipatiev’s house in order to destroy the Romanovs. Echoes of this were preserved in the diary entries of Nicholas II for May 31 (June 13) and Alexandra Fedorovna for June 1 (14).

On June 13, the murder of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich was committed in Perm. Immediately after the murder, the Perm authorities announced that Mikhail Romanov had fled and put him on the wanted list. On June 17, a message about the “escape” of Mikhail Alexandrovich was reprinted in newspapers in Moscow and Petrograd. At the same time, rumors appeared that Nicholas II was killed by a Red Army soldier who arbitrarily broke into Ipatiev’s house. In fact, Nikolai was still alive at that time.

Rumors about lynching of Nicholas II and the Romanovs in general spread beyond the Urals.

On June 18, before the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, in an interview with the liberal newspaper Nashe Slovo, opposition to Bolshevism, stated that Mikhail, according to his information, allegedly really fled, and Lenin knew nothing about the fate of Nikolai.

On June 20, the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, V. Bonch-Bruevich, asked Yekaterinburg: “Information has spread in Moscow that the former Emperor Nicholas II was allegedly killed. Please provide the information you have."

Moscow sends Latvian R.I. Berzin, commander of the North Ural Group of Soviet Forces, to Yekaterinburg for inspection, who visited Ipatiev’s house on June 22. Nikolai, in his diary, in an entry dated June 9 (22), 1918, reports the arrival of “6 people,” and the next day an entry appears that they turned out to be “commissars from Petrograd.” On June 23, representatives of the Council of People's Commissars again reported that they still had no information about whether Nicholas II was alive or not.

R. Berzin, in telegrams to the Council of People's Commissars, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the People's Commissariat of Military Affairs, reported that “all family members and Nicholas II himself are alive. All information about his murder is a provocation.” Based on the responses received, the Soviet press several times refuted rumors and reports that appeared in some newspapers about the execution of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg.

According to the testimony of three telegraph operators from the Yekaterinburg post office, later received by the Sokolov commission, Lenin, in a conversation with Berzin over a direct wire, ordered “to take under his protection the entire royal family and not allow any violence against it, responding in in this case your own life." According to historian A.G. Latyshev, telegraph communication, which Lenin and Berzin supported, is one of the proofs of Lenin’s desire to save the life of the Romanovs.

According to official Soviet historiography, the decision to execute the Romanovs was made by the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, while the central Soviet leadership was notified after the fact. During the period of perestroika, this version began to be criticized, and by the beginning of the 1990s, an alternative version had emerged, according to which the Ural authorities could not make such a decision without a directive from Moscow and took on this responsibility in order to create a political alibi for the Moscow leadership. In the post-perestroika period, the Russian historian A.G. Latyshev, who was investigating the circumstances surrounding the execution of the royal family, expressed the opinion that Lenin could indeed have secretly organized the murder in such a way as to shift responsibility to the local authorities - approximately the same as, according to Latyshev is convinced that this was done a year and a half later in relation to Kolchak. And yet in this case, the historian believes, the situation was different. In his opinion, Lenin, not wanting to spoil relations with the German Emperor Wilhelm II, a close relative of the Romanovs, did not authorize the execution.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar F.I. Goloshchekin went to Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, he was in Moscow from July 4 to July 10; On July 14, Goloshchekin returned to Yekaterinburg.

Based on the available documents, the fate of the royal family as a whole was not discussed at any level in Moscow. Only the fate of Nicholas II, who was supposed to be tried, was discussed. According to a number of historians, there was also a fundamental decision according to which the former king should have been sentenced to death. According to investigator V.N. Solovyov, Goloshchekin, citing the complexity of the military situation in the Yekaterinburg region and the possibility of the capture of the royal family by the White Guards, proposed to shoot Nicholas II without waiting for trial, but received a categorical refusal.

According to a number of historians, the decision to destroy the royal family was made upon Goloshchekin’s return to Yekaterinburg. S. D. Alekseev and I. F. Plotnikov believe that it was adopted on the evening of July 14 “by a narrow circle of the Bolshevik part of the executive committee of the Urals Council.” The collection of the Council of People's Commissars of the State Archive of the Russian Federation preserved a telegram sent on July 16, 1918 to Moscow from Yekaterinburg via Petrograd:

Thus, the telegram was received in Moscow on July 16 at 21:22. G. Z. Ioffe suggested that the “trial” referred to in the telegram meant the execution of Nicholas II or even the Romanov family. No response from the central leadership to this telegram was found in the archives.

Unlike Ioffe, a number of researchers understand the word “court” used in the telegram in the literal sense. In this case, the telegram refers to the trial of Nicholas II, regarding which there was an agreement between the central government and Yekaterinburg, and the meaning of the telegram is as follows: “inform Moscow that the trial agreed with Philip due to military circumstances... we cannot wait. The execution cannot be delayed.” This interpretation of the telegram allows us to believe that the issue of the trial of Nicholas II had not yet been resolved on July 16. The investigation believes that the brevity of the question posed in the telegram indicates that the central authorities were familiar with this issue; At the same time, there is reason “to believe that the issue of shooting members of the royal family and servants, with the exception of Nicholas II, was not agreed upon with either V.I. Lenin or Ya.M. Sverdlov.”

A few hours before the execution of the royal family, on July 16, Lenin prepared a telegram as a response to the editors of the Danish newspaper National Tidende, who addressed him with a question about the fate of Nicholas II, which denied rumors of his death. At 16 o'clock the text was sent to the telegraph, but the telegram was never sent. According to A.G. Latyshev, the text of this telegram “ means that Lenin did not even imagine the possibility of shooting Nicholas II (not to mention the entire family) the following night».

Unlike Latyshev, according to whom the decision to execute the royal family was made by the local authorities, a number of historians believe that the execution was carried out on the initiative of the Center. This point of view was defended, in particular, by D. A. Volkogonov and R. Pipes. As an argument, they cited L. D. Trotsky’s diary entry, made on April 9, 1935, about his conversation with Sverdlov after the fall of Yekaterinburg. According to this recording, Trotsky at the time of this conversation knew neither about the execution of Nicholas II, nor about the execution of his family. Sverdlov informed him about what had happened, saying that the decision was made by the central government. However, the reliability of this testimony of Trotsky is criticized, since, firstly, Trotsky is listed among those present in the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of July 18, at which Sverdlov announced the execution of Nicholas II; secondly, Trotsky himself wrote in his book “My Life” that until August 7 he was in Moscow; but this means that he could not have been unaware of the execution of Nicholas II even if his name was in the protocol by mistake.

According to the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, the official decision to execute Nicholas II was made on July 16, 1918 by the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. The original of this decision has not survived. However, a week after the execution, the official text of the verdict was published:

Resolution of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies: Due to the fact that Czech-Slovak gangs threaten the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg; in view of the fact that the crowned executioner can avoid the trial of the people (a conspiracy of the White Guards has just been discovered, with the goal of kidnapping the entire Romanov family), the Presidium of the regional committee, in fulfillment of the will of the people, decided to shoot the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov, guilty before the people of countless bloody crimes. The Romanov family was transferred from Yekaterinburg to another, more reliable place. Presidium of the Regional Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies of the Urals

Sending out the cook Leonid Sednev

As R. Wilton, a member of the investigative team, stated in his work “The Murder of the Royal Family,” before the execution, “the kitchen boy Leonid Sednev, the Tsarevich’s playmate, was removed from the Ipatiev House. He was placed with the Russian guards in Popov’s house, opposite Ipatievsky.” The memories of the participants in the execution confirm this fact.

Commandant Yurovsky, as stated by M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin), a participant in the execution, allegedly on his own initiative proposed to send away the cook Leonid Sednev, who was in the royal retinue, from the “House of Special Purpose”, under the pretext of a meeting with his uncle, who had allegedly arrived in Yekaterinburg. In fact, Leonid Sednev’s uncle, the footman of the Grand Duchesses I. D. Sednev, who accompanied the royal family in exile, was under arrest from May 27, 1918 and at the beginning of June (according to other sources, at the end of June or beginning of July 1918) was shot.

Yurovsky himself claims that he received an order to release the cook from Goloshchekin. After the execution, according to Yurovsky’s recollections, the cook was sent home.

It was decided to liquidate the remaining members of the retinue along with the royal family, since they “declared that they wished to share the fate of the monarch. Let them share." Thus, four people were assigned to liquidation: physician E. S. Botkin, chamberlain A. E. Trupp, cook I. M. Kharitonov and maid A. S. Demidova.

Of the members of the retinue, the valet T.I. Chemodurov managed to escape; on May 24, he fell ill and was placed in a prison hospital; During the evacuation of Yekaterinburg in the chaos, he was forgotten by the Bolsheviks in prison and released by the Czechs on July 25.

Execution

From the memoirs of the participants in the execution, it is known that they did not know in advance how the “execution” would be carried out. Various options were offered: to stab those arrested with daggers while they slept, to throw grenades into the room with them, to shoot them. According to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the issue of the procedure for carrying out the “execution” was resolved with the participation of employees of the UraloblChK.

At 1:30 a.m. from July 16 to July 17, a truck for transporting corpses arrived at Ipatiev’s house, one and a half hours late. After this, doctor Botkin was awakened, who was informed of the need for everyone to urgently move down due to the alarming situation in the city and the danger of staying on top floor. It took about 30 - 40 minutes to get ready.

went to the semi-basement room (Alexei, who could not walk, was carried by Nicholas II in his arms). There were no chairs in the basement; then, at Alexandra Feodorovna’s request, two chairs were brought. Alexandra Fedorovna and Alexey sat on them. The rest were located along the wall. Yurovsky brought in the firing squad and read out the verdict. Nicholas II only had time to ask: “What?” (other sources convey Nikolai’s last words as “Huh?” or “How, how? Re-read”). Yurovsky gave the command, and indiscriminate shooting began.

The executioners failed to immediately kill Alexei, the daughters of Nicholas II, the maid A.S. Demidova, and doctor E.S. Botkin. Anastasia's scream was heard, Demidova's maid rose to her feet, long time Alexei remained alive. Some of them were shot; the survivors, according to the investigation, were finished off with a bayonet by P.Z. Ermakov.

According to Yurovsky's recollections, the shooting was indiscriminate: many probably shot from the next room, through the threshold, and the bullets ricocheted off the stone wall. At the same time, one of the shooters was slightly wounded ( “A bullet from one of the shooters from behind buzzed past my head, and I don’t remember, it hit one of his arms, palms, or fingers and shot me through.”).

According to T. Manakova, during the execution, two dogs of the royal family, who started howling, were also killed - Tatiana's French bulldog Ortino and Anastasia's royal spaniel Jimmy (Jemmy). The life of the third dog, Aleksei Nikolayevich's spaniel named Joy, was saved because she did not howl. The spaniel was later taken in by the guard Letemin, who because of this was identified and arrested by the whites. Subsequently, according to the story of Bishop Vasily (Rodzianko), Joy was taken to Great Britain by an emigrant officer and handed over to the British royal family.

From the speech of Ya. M. Yurovsky to the old Bolsheviks in Sverdlovsk in 1934

The younger generation may not understand us. They may blame us for killing the girls and killing the boy heir. But by today, girls-boys would have grown into... what?

In order to muffle the shots, a truck was driven near the Ipatiev House, but shots were still heard in the city. In Sokolov’s materials there are, in particular, testimonies about this from two random witnesses, the peasant Buivid and the night watchman Tsetsegov.

According to Richard Pipes, immediately after this, Yurovsky harshly suppresses the security guards’ attempts to steal the jewelry they discovered, threatening to shoot him. After that, he instructed P.S. Medvedev to organize the cleaning of the premises, and he himself went to destroy the corpses.

The exact text of the sentence pronounced by Yurovsky before the execution is unknown. In the materials of investigator N.A. Sokolov there is testimony from the guard guard Yakimov, who claimed, with reference to the guard Kleshchev who observed this scene, that Yurovsky said: “Nikolai Alexandrovich, your relatives tried to save you, but they didn’t have to. And we are forced to shoot you ourselves.".

M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin) described this scene as follows:

In the memoirs of Yurovsky’s assistant G.P. Nikulin, this episode is described as follows:

Yurovsky himself could not remember the exact text: “...I immediately, as far as I remember, told Nikolai something like the following: that his royal relatives and friends both in the country and abroad tried to free him, and that the Council of Workers’ Deputies decided to shoot them.”.

On the afternoon of July 17, several members of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council contacted Moscow by telegraph (the telegram was marked that it was received at 12 o’clock) and reported that Nicholas II had been shot and his family had been evacuated. The editor of the Ural Worker, a member of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council, V. Vorobyov, later claimed that they “felt very uneasy when they approached the apparatus: the former tsar was shot by a resolution of the Presidium of the Regional Council, and it was unknown how they would react to this “arbitrariness” central government..." The reliability of this evidence, wrote G. Z. Ioffe, cannot be verified.

Investigator N. Sokolov claimed that he had found an encrypted telegram from the Chairman of the Ural Regional Executive Committee A. Beloborodov to Moscow, dated 21:00 on July 17, which was allegedly only deciphered in September 1920. It said: “To the Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars N.P. Gorbunov: tell Sverdlov that the whole family suffered the same fate as the head. Officially, the family will die during the evacuation.” Sokolov concluded: this means that on the evening of July 17, Moscow knew about the death of the entire royal family. However, the minutes of the meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on July 18 speak only about the execution of Nicholas II. The next day the Izvestia newspaper reported:

On July 18, the first meeting of the Presidium of the Central I.K. of the 5th convocation took place. Comrade presided. Sverdlov. Members of the Presidium were present: Avanesov, Sosnovsky, Teodorovich, Vladimirsky, Maksimov, Smidovich, Rosengoltz, Mitrofanov and Rozin. Chairman Comrade Sverdlov announces a message just received via direct wire from the Regional Ural Council about the execution of the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov. In recent days, the capital of the Red Urals, Yekaterinburg, was seriously threatened by the approach of Czech-Slovak gangs. At the same time, a new conspiracy of counter-revolutionaries was uncovered, with the goal of wresting the crowned executioner from the hands of Soviet power. In view of this, the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot Nikolai Romanov, which was carried out on July 16th. The wife and son of Nikolai Romanov were sent to a safe place. Documents about the uncovered conspiracy were sent to Moscow by special courier. Having made this message, Comrade. Sverdlov recalls the story of the transfer of Nikolai Romanov from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg after the discovery of the same organization of White Guards, which was preparing the escape of Nikolai Romanov. Recently, it was intended to bring the former king to trial for all his crimes against the people, and only recent events prevented this from happening. The Presidium of the Central I.K., having discussed all the circumstances that forced the Ural Regional Council to decide to shoot Nikolai Romanov, decided: The All-Russian Central I.K., represented by its Presidium, recognizes the decision of the Ural Regional Council as correct.

On the eve of this official press release, on July 18 (possibly on the night of the 18th to the 19th), a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars was held, at which this resolution of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee was “taken into account.”

The telegram that Sokolov writes about is not in the files of the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. “Some foreign authors,” writes historian G. Z. Ioffe, “even cautiously expressed doubt about its authenticity.” I. D. Kovalchenko and G. Z. Ioffe left open question whether this telegram was received in Moscow. According to a number of other historians, including Yu. A. Buranov and V. M. Khrustalev, L. A. Lykov, this telegram is genuine and was received in Moscow before the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars.

On July 19, Yurovsky took “conspiracy documents” to Moscow. The time of Yurovsky’s arrival in Moscow is not known exactly, but it is known that the diaries of Nicholas II that he brought on July 26 were already in the possession of the historian M. N. Pokrovsky. On August 6, with the participation of Yurovsky, the entire Romanov archive was delivered to Moscow from Perm.

Question about the composition of the firing squad

Memoirs of G.P. Nikulin, a participant in the execution.

... comrade Ermakov, who behaved rather indecently, subsequently assuming the leading role for himself, that he did it all, so to speak, single-handedly, without any help... In fact, there were 8 of us who performed it: Yurovsky, Nikulin, Mikhail Medvedev, Pavel Medvedev four, Ermakov Petr five, but I’m not sure that Kabanov Ivan is six. And I don’t remember the names of two more.

When we went down to the basement, we also didn’t even think of putting chairs there at first to sit down, because this one was... didn’t walk, you know, Alexey, we had to sit him down. Well, then they brought it up instantly. When they went down to the basement, they began to look at each other in bewilderment, they immediately brought in chairs, sat down, which means Alexandra Fedorovna, the heir, was imprisoned, and Comrade Yurovsky uttered the following phrase: “Your friends are advancing on Yekaterinburg , and therefore you are condemned to death." They didn’t even realize what was going on, because Nikolai just said immediately: “Ah!”, and at that time our salvo was already one, two, three. Well, there’s someone else there, which means, so to speak, well, or something, they weren’t quite completely killed yet. Well, then I had to shoot someone else...

Soviet researcher M. Kasvinov, in his book “23 Steps Down,” first published in the magazine “Zvezda” (1972-1973), actually attributed the leadership of the execution not to Yurovsky, but to Ermakov:

However, later the text was changed, and in subsequent editions of the book, published after the author’s death, Yurovsky and Nikulin were named as the leaders of the execution:

The materials of the investigation by N. A. Sokolov in the case of the murder of Emperor Nicholas II and his family contain numerous testimony that the direct perpetrators of the murder were “Latvians” led by a Jew (Yurovsky). However, as Sokolov notes, the Russian Red Army soldiers called all non-Russian Bolsheviks “Latvians.” Therefore, opinions differ about who these “Latvians” were.

Sokolov further writes that an inscription in Hungarian “Verhas Andras 1918 VII/15 e örsegen” and a fragment of a letter in Hungarian written in the spring of 1918 were discovered in the house. The inscription on the wall in Hungarian translates as “Andreas Vergázy 1918 VII/15 stood on guard” and is partially duplicated in Russian: “No. 6. Vergás Karau 1918 VII/15.” The name varies in different sources as “Verhas Andreas”, “Verhas Andras”, etc. (according to the rules of Hungarian-Russian practical transcription, it should be translated into Russian as “Verhas Andras”). Sokolov classified this person as one of the “chekist executioners”; researcher I. Plotnikov believes that this was done “rashly”: post No. 6 belonged to external security, and the unknown Vergazi Andras could not have participated in the execution.

General Dieterichs, “by analogy,” also included the Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war Rudolf Lasher among the participants in the execution; according to researcher I. Plotnikov, Lasher was in fact not involved in security at all, doing only household work.

In the light of Plotnikov’s research, the list of those executed may look like this: Yurovsky, Nikulin, member of the board of the regional Cheka M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), P. Z. Ermakov, S. P. Vaganov, A. G. Kabanov, P. S. Medvedev, V. N. Netrebin, possibly J. M. Tselms and, under a very big question, an unknown mining student. Plotnikov believes that the latter was used in Ipatiev’s house within only a few days after the execution and only as a jewelry specialist. Thus, according to Plotnikov, the execution of the royal family was carried out by a group whose ethnic composition was almost entirely Russian, with the participation of one Jew (Ya. M. Yurovsky) and, probably, one Latvian (Ya. M. Tselms). According to surviving information, two or three Latvians refused to participate in the execution.

There is another list of the alleged firing squad, compiled by the Tobolsk Bolshevik, who transported the royal children remaining in Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, the Latvian J. M. Svikke (Rodionov) and consisting almost entirely of Latvians. All the Latvians mentioned in the list actually served with Svikke in 1918, but apparently did not participate in the execution (with the exception of Celms).

In 1956, the German media published documents and testimonies of a certain I.P. Meyer, a former Austrian prisoner of war, a member of the Ural Regional Council in 1918, which stated that seven former Hungarian prisoners of war participated in the execution, including a man whom some authors have identified as Imre Nagy, a future Hungarian political and statesman. This evidence, however, was later found to be falsified.

Disinformation campaign

The official report of the Soviet leadership on the execution of Nicholas II, published in the newspapers Izvestia and Pravda on July 19, stated that the decision to shoot Nicholas II (“Nikolai Romanov”) was made in connection with the extremely difficult military situation in the Yekaterinburg region , and the discovery of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy aimed at freeing the former tsar; that the decision to execute was made independently by the presidium of the Ural Regional Council; that only Nicholas II was killed, and his wife and son were transported to a “safe place.” The fate of other children and people close to the royal family was not mentioned at all. For a number of years, the authorities stubbornly defended the official version that the family of Nicholas II was alive. This misinformation fueled rumors that some family members managed to escape and escape with their lives.

Although the central authorities should have learned from a telegram from Yekaterinburg on the evening of July 17, “...that the whole family suffered the same fate as the head”, in the official resolutions of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of July 18, 1918, only the execution of Nicholas II was mentioned. On July 20, negotiations between Ya. M. Sverdlov and A. G. Beloborodov took place, during which Beloborodov was asked the question: “ ...can we notify the population with a known text?" After this (according to L.A. Lykova, July 23; according to other sources, July 21 or 22) a message about the execution of Nicholas II was published in Yekaterinburg, repeating the official version of the Soviet leadership.

On July 22, 1918, information about the execution of Nicholas II was published by the London Times, and on July 21 (due to the difference in time zones) by the New York Times. The basis for these publications was official information from the Soviet government.

Disinformation to the world and Russian public continued both in the official press and through diplomatic channels. Materials have been preserved about negotiations between the Soviet authorities and representatives of the German embassy: on July 24, 1918, Advisor K. Riezler received information from the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters had been transported to Perm and were not in danger. Denial of the death of the royal family continued further. Negotiations between the Soviet and German governments on the exchange of the royal family continued until September 15, 1918. The Ambassador of Soviet Russia to Germany A. A. Ioffe was not informed about what happened in Yekaterinburg on the advice of V. I. Lenin, who gave instructions: “...don’t tell A. A. Ioffe anything, so that it would be easier for him to lie”.

Subsequently, official representatives of the Soviet leadership continued to misinform the world community: diplomat M. M. Litvinov stated that the royal family was alive in December 1918; G. Z. Zinoviev in an interview with a newspaper San Francisco Chronicle July 11, 1921 also claimed that the family was alive; People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin continued to give false information about the fate of the royal family - for example, already in April 1922, during the Genoa Conference, to a question from a newspaper correspondent Chicago Tribune about the fate of the grand duchesses, he replied: “The fate of the king’s daughters is unknown to me. I read in the newspapers that they are in America.". A prominent Bolshevik, one of the participants in the decision to execute the royal family, P.L. Voikov, allegedly declared in a ladies’ society in Yekaterinburg, “that the world will never know what they did to the royal family.”

The truth about the fate of the entire royal family was reported in the article “The Last Days of the Last Tsar” by P. M. Bykov; the article was published in the collection “Workers' Revolution in the Urals,” published in Yekaterinburg in 1921 in a circulation of 10,000; shortly after its release, the collection was “withdrawn from circulation.” Bykov's article was reprinted in the Moscow newspaper Kommunisticheskiy Trud (future Moskovskaya Pravda). In 1922, the same newspaper published a review of the collection “Workers' Revolution in the Urals. Episodes and facts"; in it, in particular, it was said about P.Z. Ermakov as the main executor of the execution of the royal family on July 17, 1918.

The Soviet authorities admitted that Nicholas II was shot not alone, but together with his family, when materials from Sokolov’s investigation began to spread in the West. After Sokolov’s book was published in Paris, Bykov received from the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks the task of presenting the history of the Yekaterinburg events. This is how his book “The Last Days of the Romanovs” appeared, published in Sverdlovsk in 1926. In 1930, the book was republished.

According to historian L.A. Lykova, lies and disinformation about the murder in the basement of Ipatiev’s house, its official formulation in the relevant decisions of the Bolshevik Party in the first days after the events and silence for more than seventy years gave rise to distrust of the authorities in society, which continued to affect and in post-Soviet Russia.

The fate of the Romanovs

In addition to the family of the former emperor, in 1918-1919, “a whole group of Romanovs” were destroyed, who, for one reason or another, remained in Russia by this time. The Romanovs who were in Crimea survived, whose lives were protected by Commissar F.L. Zadorozhny (the Yalta Council was going to execute them so that they would not end up with the Germans, who occupied Simferopol in mid-April 1918 and continued the occupation of Crimea). After the occupation of Yalta by the Germans, the Romanovs found themselves outside the power of the Soviets, and after the arrival of the Whites they were able to emigrate.

Also surviving were two grandchildren of Nikolai Konstantinovich, who died in 1918 in Tashkent from pneumonia (some sources mistakenly say he was executed) - the children of his son Alexander Iskander: Natalya Androsova (1917-1999) and Kirill Androsov (1915-1992) who lived in Moscow.

Thanks to the intervention of M. Gorky, Prince Gabriel Konstantinovich, who later emigrated to Germany, also managed to escape. On November 20, 1918, Maxim Gorky addressed V.I. Lenin with a letter that said:

The prince was released.

Murder of Mikhail Alexandrovich in Perm

The first of the Romanovs to die was Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. He and his secretary Brian Johnson were killed in Perm, where they were serving exile. According to available evidence, on the night of June 12-13, 1918, several armed men appeared at the hotel where Mikhail lived, took Mikhail Alexandrovich and Brian Johnson into the forest and shot them. The remains of those killed have not yet been found.

The murder was presented as the abduction of Mikhail Alexandrovich by his supporters or a secret escape, which was used by the authorities as a pretext to tighten the regime of detention of all exiled Romanovs: the royal family in Yekaterinburg and the grand dukes in Alapaevsk and Vologda.

Alapaevsk murder

Almost simultaneously with the execution of the royal family, the murder of the Grand Dukes, who were in the city of Alapaevsk, 140 kilometers from Yekaterinburg, was committed. On the night of July 5 (18), 1918, the arrested were taken to an abandoned mine 12 km from the city and thrown into it.

At 3:15 a.m. the executive committee of the Alapaevsk Council telegraphed to Yekaterinburg that the princes were allegedly kidnapped by an unknown gang who raided the school where they were kept. On the same day, the chairman of the Ural Regional Council, Beloborodov, conveyed the corresponding message to Sverdlov in Moscow and Zinoviev and Uritsky in Petrograd:

The style of the Alapaevsk murder was similar to that in Yekaterinburg: in both cases, the victims were thrown into an abandoned mine in the forest, and in both cases attempts were made to collapse this mine with grenades. At the same time, the Alapaevsk murder differed significantly b O greater cruelty: the victims, with the exception of Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who resisted and was shot, were thrown into the mine, presumably after being hit on the head with a blunt object, while some of them were still alive; according to R. Pipes, they died of thirst and lack of air, probably a few days later. However, an investigation carried out by the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation came to the conclusion that their death occurred immediately.

G.Z. Ioffe agreed with the opinion of investigator N. Sokolov, who wrote: “Both the Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk murders are the product of the same will of the same individuals.”

Execution of the Grand Dukes in Petrograd

After the “escape” of Mikhail Romanov, the Grand Dukes Nikolai Mikhailovich, Georgiy Mikhailovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich, who were in exile in Vologda, were arrested. The Grand Dukes Pavel Alexandrovich and Gabriel Konstantinovich, who remained in Petrograd, were also transferred to the position of prisoners.

After the announcement of the Red Terror, four of them ended up in the Peter and Paul Fortress as hostages. On January 24, 1919 (according to other sources - January 27, 29 or 30) Grand Dukes Pavel Alexandrovich, Dmitry Konstantinovich, Nikolai Mikhailovich and Georgy Mikhailovich were shot. On January 31, Petrograd newspapers briefly reported that the grand dukes were shot “by order of the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Profiteering of the Union of Communes of the Northern O[region].”

It was announced that they had been shot as hostages in response to the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Germany. February 6, 1919 Moscow newspaper “Always Forward!” published an article by Yu. Martov “Shame!” with a sharp condemnation of this extrajudicial execution of the “four Romanovs”.

Evidence from contemporaries

Memoirs of Trotsky

According to the historian Yu. Felshtinsky, Trotsky, already abroad, adhered to the version according to which the decision to execute the royal family was made by the local authorities. Later, using the memoirs of the Soviet diplomat Besedovsky, who defected to the West, Trotsky tried, in the words of Yu. Felshtinsky, to “shift the blame for the regicide” onto Sverdlov and Stalin. In the drafts of unfinished chapters of the biography of Stalin, which Trotsky was working on in the late 1930s, there is the following entry:

In the mid-1930s, entries appeared in Trotsky's diary about events related to the execution of the royal family. According to Trotsky, back in June 1918 he suggested that the Politburo still organize a show trial of the deposed tsar, and Trotsky was interested in broad propaganda coverage of this process. However, the proposal did not meet with much enthusiasm, since all the Bolshevik leaders, including Trotsky himself, were too busy with current affairs. With the Czech uprising, the physical survival of Bolshevism was in question, and it would have been difficult to organize a trial of the Tsar under such conditions.

In his diary, Trotsky claimed that the decision to execute was made by Lenin and Sverdlov:

The White press once very hotly debated the question of whose decision the royal family was put to death... Liberals seemed to be inclined to believe that the Ural executive committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is not true. The decision was made in Moscow. (...) My next visit to Moscow came after the fall of Yekaterinburg. In a conversation with Sverdlov, I asked in passing: Yes, where is the king? “It’s over,” he answered, “he was shot.” Where is the family? And his family is with him. All? - I asked, apparently with a tinge of surprise. That’s it,” Sverdlov answered, “but what?” He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer. Who decided? - I asked. We decided here. Ilyich believed that we should not leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions.

Historian Felshtinsky, commenting on Trotsky’s memoirs, believes that the diary entry of 1935 is much more credible, since the entries in the diary were not intended for publicity and publication.

Senior investigator for especially important cases of the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia V.N. Solovyov, who led the investigation of the criminal case into the death of the royal family, drew attention to the fact that in the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, at which Sverdlov reported on the execution of Nicholas II, the name of those present appears Trotsky. This contradicts his recollections of a conversation “after arriving from the front” with Sverdlov about Lenin. Indeed, Trotsky, according to the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars No. 159, was present on July 18 at Sverdlov's announcement of the execution. According to some sources, he, as the People's Commissar for Military Affairs, was at the front near Kazan on July 18. At the same time, Trotsky himself writes in his work “My Life” that he left for Sviyazhsk only on August 7. It should also be noted that Trotsky’s statement refers to 1935, when neither Lenin nor Sverdlov were already alive. Even if Trotsky’s name was entered into the minutes of the meeting of the Council of People’s Commissars by mistake, automatically, information about the execution of Nicholas II was published in the newspapers, and he could only have not known about the execution of the entire royal family.

Historians critically evaluate Trotsky's evidence. Thus, historian V.P. Buldakov wrote that Trotsky had a tendency to simplify the description of events for the sake of beauty of presentation, and historian-archivist V.M. Khrustalev, pointing out that Trotsky, according to the protocols preserved in the archives, was among the participants in that very meeting Council of People's Commissars, suggested that Trotsky in his mentioned memoirs was only trying to distance himself from the decision made in Moscow.

From the diary of V. P. Milyutin

V.P. Milyutin wrote:

“I returned late from the Council of People's Commissars. There were “current” matters. During the discussion of the health care project, Semashko's report, Sverdlov entered and sat down in his place on the chair behind Ilyich. Semashko finished. Sverdlov came up, leaned towards Ilyich and said something. - Comrades, Sverdlov asks for the floor for a message. “I must say,” Sverdlov began in his usual tone, “a message has been received that in Yekaterinburg, by order of the regional Council, Nikolai was shot... Nikolai wanted to escape. The Czechoslovaks were approaching. The Presidium of the Central Election Commission decided to approve... “Let’s now move on to an article-by-article reading of the draft,” Ilyich suggested...” Quoted from: Sverdlova K. Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov

Memoirs of participants in the execution

The memories of direct participants in the events of Ya. M. Yurovsky, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrina), G. P. Nikulin, P. Z. Ermakov, and also A. A. Strekotin (during the execution, apparently, provided external security) have been preserved home), V.N. Netrebin, P.M. Bykov (apparently, did not personally participate in the execution), I. Rodzinsky (personally did not participate in the execution, participated in the destruction of corpses), Kabanov, P.L. Voikov, G.I. Sukhorukov (participated only in the destruction of corpses), Chairman of the Ural Regional Council A.G. Beloborodov (personally did not participate in the execution).

One of the most detailed sources is the work of the Bolshevik leader of the Urals P. M. Bykov, who until March 1918 was the chairman of the Yekaterinburg Council and a member of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council. In 1921, Bykov published the article “The Last Days of the Last Tsar”, and in 1926 - the book “The Last Days of the Romanovs”; ​​in 1930 the book was republished in Moscow and Leningrad.

Other detailed sources are the memoirs of M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin), who personally participated in the execution, and, in relation to the execution, the memoirs of Ya.M. Yurovsky and his assistant G.P. Nikulin. The memoirs of Medvedev (Kudrin) were written in 1963 and addressed to N. S. Khrushchev More brief are the memoirs of I. Rodzinsky, an employee of the Cheka Kabanov and others.

Many participants in the events had their own personal grievances against the tsar: M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), judging by his memoirs, was in prison under the tsar, P. L. Voikov participated in the revolutionary terror in 1907, P. Z. Ermakov for his participation in expropriations and the murder of a provocateur he was exiled; Yurovsky’s father was exiled on charges of theft. In his autobiography, Yurovsky claims that in 1912 he himself was exiled to Yekaterinburg with a ban on settling “in 64 places in Russia and Siberia.” In addition, among the Bolshevik leaders in Yekaterinburg was Sergei Mrachkovsky, who was actually born in prison, where his mother was imprisoned for revolutionary activities. The phrase uttered by Mrachkovsky, “by the grace of tsarism, I was born in prison,” was subsequently erroneously attributed to Yurovsky by investigator Sokolov. During the events, Mrachkovsky was engaged in selecting the guards of the Ipatiev House from among the workers of the Sysert plant. Before the revolution, the Chairman of the Ural Regional Council, A.G. Beloborodov, was in prison for issuing a proclamation.

The recollections of the participants in the execution, while mostly coinciding with each other, differ in a number of details. Judging by them, Yurovsky personally finished off the heir with two (according to other sources - three) shots. Yurovsky’s assistant G.P. Nikulin, P.Z. Ermakov, M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) and others also took part in the execution. According to Medvedev’s recollections, Yurovsky, Ermakov and Medvedev personally shot at Nikolai. In addition, Ermakov and Medvedev are finishing off the Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Anastasia. The “honor” of the liquidation of Nikolai is actually being challenged by Yurovsky, M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) (not to be confused with another participant in the events P.S. Medvedev) and Ermakov; Yurovsky and Medvedev (Kudrin) seem to be the most likely, in Yekaterinburg itself During the events, it was believed that the Tsar was shot by Ermakov.

Yurovsky, in his memoirs, claimed that he personally killed the tsar, while Medvedev (Kudrin) attributes this to himself. Medvedev’s version was also partially confirmed by another participant in the events, an employee of the Cheka Kabanov. At the same time, M.A. Medvedev (Kudrin) in his memoirs claims that Nikolai “fell with my fifth shot,” and Yurovsky - that he killed him with one shot.

Ermakov himself in his memoirs describes his role in the execution as follows (spelling preserved):

...they told me that it was your fate to be shot and buried... I accepted the order and said that it would be carried out precisely, prepared a place where to lead and how to hide, taking into account all the circumstances of the importance of the political moment. When I reported to Beloborodov that I could do it, he said to make sure that everyone was shot, we decided that, I didn’t enter into further discussions, I began to do it the way it was necessary... ...When everything was in order, then I gave the commandant of the house in the office a resolution from the regional executive committee to Yurovsky, he doubted why everyone, but I told him over everyone and there’s nothing for us to talk for a long time, time is short, it’s time to get started.... ...I took Nikalai himself, Alexandra, daughters, Alexey, because I had a Mauser, they could work faithfully, the rest were revolvers. After descending, we waited a little on the ground floor, then the commandant waited for everyone to get up, everyone stood up, but Alexey was sitting on a chair, then he began to read the verdict of the resolution, which said, by decision of the Executive Committee, to shoot. Then a phrase escaped Nikolai: how they won’t take us anywhere, there was no way to wait any longer, I fired a shot at him point-blank, he fell immediately, but so did the others, at that time crying arose between them, one threw a brasalis on the other’s neck, then they fired several shots, and everyone fell.

As you can see, Ermakov contradicts all the other participants in the execution, completely attributing to himself the entire leadership of the execution, and the liquidation of Nikolai personally. According to some sources, at the time of the execution Ermakov was drunk and armed himself with a total of three (according to other sources, even four) pistols. At the same time, investigator Sokolov believed that Ermakov did not actively participate in the execution and supervised the destruction of the corpses. In general, Ermakov’s memories stand apart from the memories of other participants in the events; the information reported by Ermakov is not confirmed by most other sources.

Participants in the events also disagree on the issue of Moscow coordinating the execution. According to the version set out in “Yurovsky’s note,” the order “to exterminate the Romanovs” came from Perm. “Why from Perm? - asks the historian G. Z. Ioffe. - Was there no direct connection with Yekaterinburg then? Or was Yurovsky, in writing this phrase, guided by some considerations known only to him?” Back in 1919, investigator N. Sokolov established that shortly before the execution, due to the deterioration of the military situation in the Urals, a member of the Presidium of the Council, Goloshchekin, traveled to Moscow, where he tried to coordinate this issue. However, M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin), a participant in the execution, claims in his memoirs that the decision was made by Yekaterinburg and was approved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee retroactively, on July 18, as Beloborodov told him, and during Goloshchekin’s trip to Moscow Lenin did not approve execution, demanding that Nikolai be taken to Moscow for trial. At the same time, Medvedev (Kudrin) notes that the Ural Regional Council was under powerful pressure from both embittered revolutionary workers who demanded that Nicholas be immediately shot, and fanatical left Socialist Revolutionaries and anarchists who began to accuse the Bolsheviks of inconsistency. There is similar information in Yurovsky’s memoirs.

According to the story of P. L. Voikov, known as presented by the former adviser to the Soviet embassy in France G. Z. Besedovsky, the decision was made by Moscow, but only under persistent pressure from Yekaterinburg; according to Voikov, Moscow was going to “cede the Romanovs to Germany,” “...they especially hoped for the opportunity to bargain for a reduction in the indemnity of three hundred million rubles in gold imposed on Russia under the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. This indemnity was one of the most unpleasant points of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and Moscow would very much like to change this point”; in addition, “some of the members of the Central Committee, in particular Lenin, also objected for reasons of principle to the shooting of children,” while Lenin cited the Great French Revolution as an example.

According to P. M. Bykov, when shooting the Romanovs, the local authorities acted “at their own peril and risk.”

G. P. Nikulin testified:

The question often arises: “Was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov or our other leading central workers aware of the execution of the royal family in advance?” Well, it’s hard for me to say whether they knew in advance, but I think that since... Goloshchekin... went to Moscow twice to negotiate the fate of the Romanovs, then, of course, one should conclude that this is exactly what was discussed. ...it was supposed to organize a trial of the Romanovs, first... in such a broad manner, like a nationwide trial, and then, when all sorts of counter-revolutionary elements were constantly grouping around Yekaterinburg, the question arose about organizing such a narrow, revolutionary court. But this was not carried out either. The trial as such did not take place, and, in essence, the execution of the Romanovs was carried out by decision of the Ural Executive Committee of the Ural Regional Council...

Memoirs of Yurovsky

Yurovsky's memoirs are known in three versions:

• a brief “note by Yurovsky” dating from 1920;
• a detailed version dating from April - May 1922, signed by Yurovsky;
• an abridged version of the memoirs, which appeared in 1934, created on the instructions of Uralistpart, includes a transcript of Yurovsky’s speech and a text prepared on its basis, differing in some details from it.

The reliability of the first source is questioned by some researchers; Investigator Solovyov considers it authentic. In the “Note” Yurovsky writes about himself in the third person ( "commandant"), which is apparently explained by the insertions of the historian M.N. Pokrovsky, recorded by him from the words of Yurovsky. There is also an expanded second edition of the Note, dated 1922.

The Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Yu. I. Skuratov, believed that “Yurovsky’s note” “represents an official report on the execution of the royal family, prepared by Ya. M. Yurovsky for the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.”

Diaries of Nicholas and Alexandra

The diaries of the Tsar and Tsarina themselves have also survived to this day, including those kept directly in the Ipatiev House. The last entry in the diary of Nicholas II is dated Saturday, June 30 (July 13 - Nicholas kept a diary according to the old style), 1918. “Alexey took his first bath after Tobolsk; his knee is getting better, but he cannot straighten it completely. The weather is warm and pleasant. We have no news from outside.". Alexandra Feodorovna’s diary reaches the last day - Tuesday, July 16, 1918 with the entry: “...Every morning the Commandant comes to our rooms. Finally, after a week, eggs were brought again for Baby [the heir]. ...Suddenly they sent for Lyonka Sednev to go and see his uncle, and he hastily ran away, we wonder if all this is true and whether we will see the boy again..."

The tsar in his diary describes a number of everyday details: the arrival of the tsar’s children from Tobolsk, changes in the composition of the retinue (“ I decided to let my old man Chemodurov go for a rest and instead take the Troupe for a while"), the weather, books read, features of the regime, your impressions of the guards and the conditions of detention ( “It’s intolerable to sit cooped up like this and not be able to go out into the garden when you want and spend a nice evening outdoors! Prison regime!!”). The Tsar inadvertently mentioned correspondence with an anonymous “Russian officer” (“the other day we received two letters, one after the other, telling us that we should prepare to be kidnapped by some loyal people!”).

From the diary you can find out Nikolai’s opinion about both commandants: he called Avdeev a “bastard” (entry dated April 30, Monday), who was once “a little tipsy.” The king also expressed dissatisfaction with the theft of things (entry dated May 28 / June 10):

However, the opinion about Yurovsky was not the best: “We like this guy less and less!”; about Avdeev: “It’s a pity for Avdeev, but he is to blame for not keeping his people from stealing from the chests in the barn”; “According to rumors, some of the Avdeevites are already under arrest!”

In the entry dated May 28 / June 10, as historian Melgunov writes, echoes of events that took place outside the Ipatiev House were reflected:

In Alexandra Feodorovna’s diary there is an entry regarding the change of commandants:

Destruction and burial of remains

Death of the Romanovs (1918-1919)

• Murder of Mikhail Alexandrovich
• Execution of the royal family
• Alapaevsk martyrs
• Execution in the Peter and Paul Fortress

Yurovsky's version

According to Yurovsky’s recollections, he went to the mine at about three in the morning on July 17. Yurovsky reports that Goloshchekin must have ordered the burial of P.Z. Ermakov. However, things did not go as smoothly as we would like: Ermakov brought too many people as the funeral team ( “Why there are so many of them, I still don’t know, I only heard isolated cries - we thought that they would be given to us here alive, but here, it turns out, they are dead.”); the truck got stuck; Jewels were discovered sewn into the clothes of the Grand Duchesses, and some of Ermakov’s people began to appropriate them. Yurovsky ordered guards to be assigned to the truck. The bodies were loaded onto carriages. On the way and near the mine designated for burial, strangers were encountered. Yurovsky allocated people to cordon off the area, as well as to inform the village that Czechoslovaks were operating in the area and that leaving the village was prohibited under threat of execution. In an effort to get rid of the presence of an overly large funeral team, he sends some of the people to the city “as unnecessary.” Orders fires to be built to burn clothing as possible evidence.

From Yurovsky’s memoirs (spelling preserved):

After the confiscation of valuables and burning of clothes on fires, the corpses were thrown into the mine, but “... a new hassle. The water barely covered the bodies, what should we do?” The funeral team unsuccessfully tried to bring down the mine with grenades (“bombs”), after which Yurovsky, according to him, finally came to the conclusion that the burial of the corpses had failed, since they were easy to detect and, in addition, there were witnesses that something was happening here . Leaving the guards and taking the valuables, at approximately two o'clock in the afternoon (in an earlier version of the memoirs - “at about 10-11 am”) on July 17, Yurovsky went to the city. I arrived at the Ural Regional Executive Committee and reported on the situation. Goloshchekin called Ermakov and sent him to retrieve the corpses. Yurovsky went to the city executive committee to its chairman S.E. Chutskaev for advice regarding the burial place. Chutskaev reported about deep abandoned mines on the Moscow highway. Yurovsky went to inspect these mines, but could not get to the place immediately due to a car breakdown, so he had to walk. He returned on requisitioned horses. During this time, another plan emerged - to burn the corpses.

Yurovsky was not entirely sure that the incineration would be successful, so the option still remained of burying the corpses in the mines of the Moscow Highway. In addition, he had the idea, in case of any failure, to bury the bodies in groups in different places on the clay road. Thus, there were three options for action. Yurovsky went to the Commissar of Supply of the Urals, Voikov, to get gasoline or kerosene, as well as sulfuric acid to disfigure faces, and shovels. Having received this, they loaded them onto carts and sent them to the location of the corpses. The truck was sent there. Yurovsky himself remained waiting for Polushin, the ““specialist” in burning,” and waited for him until 11 o’clock in the evening, but he never arrived, because, as Yurovsky later learned, he fell from his horse and injured his leg. At about 12 o'clock at night, Yurovsky, not counting on the reliability of the car, went to the place where the bodies of the dead were, on horseback, but this time another horse crushed his leg, so that he could not move for an hour.

Yurovsky arrived at the scene at night. Work was underway to extract the bodies. Yurovsky decided to bury several corpses along the way. By dawn on July 18, the pit was almost ready, but a stranger appeared nearby. I had to abandon this plan too. After waiting until evening, we loaded onto the cart (the truck was waiting in a place where it shouldn’t get stuck). Then we were driving a truck and it got stuck. Midnight was approaching, and Yurovsky decided that it was necessary to bury him somewhere here, since it was dark and no one could witness the burial.

I. Rodzinsky and M. A. Medvedev (Kudrin) also left their memories of the burial of the corpses (Medvedev, by his own admission, did not personally participate in the burial and retold the events from the words of Yurovsky and Rodzinsky). According to the memoirs of Rodzinsky himself:

Analysis of investigator Solovyov

Senior prosecutor-criminologist of the Main Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation V.N. Solovyov conducted a comparative analysis of Soviet sources (memories of participants in the events) and Sokolov’s investigation materials.

Based on these materials, investigator Solovyov made the following conclusion:

A comparison of materials from participants in the burial and destruction of corpses and documents from N. A. Sokolov’s investigative file on travel routes and manipulations with corpses gives grounds for the assertion that the same places are being described, near mine # 7, at crossing # 184. Indeed , Yurovsky and others burned clothes and shoes at the site explored by Magnitsky and Sokolov, sulfuric acid was used during burial, two corpses, but not all, were burned. A detailed comparison of these and other case materials gives grounds for the assertion that there are no significant, mutually exclusive contradictions in the “Soviet materials” and the materials of N. A. Sokolov, there are only different interpretation the same events. Solovyov also indicated that, according to the study, “... under the conditions in which the destruction of corpses was carried out, it was impossible to completely destroy the remains using sulfuric acid and flammable materials indicated in the investigative file of N. A. Sokolov and the memoirs of participants in the events.”

Reaction to the shooting

The collection “The Revolution Defends itself” (1989) states that the execution of Nicholas II complicated the situation in the Urals, and mentions the riots that broke out in a number of areas of the Perm, Ufa and Vyatka provinces. It is argued that under the influence of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, the petty bourgeoisie, a significant part of the middle peasantry and certain layers of workers rebelled. The rebels brutally killed communists, government officials and their families. Thus, in the Kizbangashevsky volost of the Ufa province, 300 people died at the hands of the rebels. Some rebellions were suppressed quickly, but more often the rebels put up long-term resistance.

Meanwhile, historian G. Z. Ioffe in the monograph “Revolution and the Fate of the Romanovs” (1992) writes that, according to reports of many contemporaries, including those from the anti-Bolshevik environment, the news of the execution of Nicholas II “in general went unnoticed, without any manifestations protest." Ioffe quotes the memoirs of V.N. Kokovtsov: “...On the day the news was published, I was on the street twice, rode a tram, and nowhere did I see the slightest glimmer of pity or compassion. The news was read loudly, with grins, mockery and the most merciless comments... Some kind of senseless callousness, some kind of boasting of bloodthirstiness..."

A similar opinion is expressed by historian V.P. Buldakov. In his opinion, at that time few people were interested in the fate of the Romanovs, and long before their death there were rumors that none of the members of the imperial family were alive. According to Buldakov, the townspeople received the news of the tsar’s murder “with stupid indifference,” and the wealthy peasants with amazement, but without any protest. Buldakov cites a fragment from the diaries of Z. Gippius as a typical example of a similar reaction of the non-monarchist intelligentsia: “I don’t feel sorry for the puny officer, of course...he was with a carrion for a long time, but the disgusting ugliness of all this is unbearable.”

Investigation

On July 25, 1918, eight days after the execution of the royal family, Yekaterinburg was occupied by units of the White Army and detachments of the Czechoslovak Corps. The military authorities began a search for the missing royal family.

On July 30, an investigation into the circumstances of her death began. For the investigation, by decision of the Yekaterinburg District Court, an investigator for the most important cases, A.P. Nametkin, was appointed. On August 12, 1918, the investigation was entrusted to a member of the Yekaterinburg District Court, I. A. Sergeev, who examined Ipatiev’s house, including the semi-basement room where the royal family was shot, collected and described the material evidence found in the “House of Special Purpose” and at the mine. Since August 1918, A.F. Kirsta, appointed head of the criminal investigation department of Yekaterinburg, joined the investigation.

On January 17, 1919, to oversee the investigation into the murder of the royal family, the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, appointed Lieutenant General M.K. Diterichs, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front. On January 26, Diterikhs received the original materials of the investigation conducted by Nametkin and Sergeev. By order of February 6, 1919, the investigation was entrusted to the investigator for especially important cases of the Omsk District Court N. A. Sokolov (1882-1924). It was thanks to his painstaking work that the details of the execution and burial of the royal family became known for the first time. Sokolov continued the investigation even in exile, until his sudden death. Based on the investigation materials, he wrote the book “The Murder of the Royal Family,” which was published in French in Paris during the author’s lifetime, and after his death, in 1925, published in Russian.

Investigation of the late 20th and early 21st centuries

The circumstances of the death of the royal family were investigated as part of a criminal case initiated on August 19, 1993 at the direction of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. Materials of the government Commission to study issues related to the research and reburial of the remains of Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family have been published. In 1994, criminologist Sergei Nikitin reconstructed the appearance of the owners of the found skulls using Gerasimov’s method.

The investigator for particularly important cases of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, V. N. Solovyov, who led the criminal case into the death of the royal family, having examined the memoirs of those personally involved in the execution, as well as the testimony of other former guards of the Ipatiev House, came to conclusion that in the description of the execution they do not contradict each other, differing only in small details.

Solovyov stated that he had not found any documents that would directly prove the initiative of Lenin and Sverdlov. At the same time, when asked whether Lenin and Sverdlov were to blame for the execution of the royal family, he answered:

Meanwhile, historian A.G. Latyshev notes that if the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, chaired by Sverdlov, approved (recognized as correct) the decision of the Ural Regional Council to execute Nicholas II, then the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin, only “took note” of this decision.

Solovyov completely rejected the “ritual version”, pointing out that most of the participants in the discussion of the method of murder were Russians, only one Jew (Yurovsky) took part in the murder itself, and the rest were Russians and Latvians. The investigation also refuted the version promoted by M. K. Diterkhis about “cutting off heads” for ritual purposes. According to the conclusion forensic medical examination, on cervical vertebrae All skeletons lack traces of post-mortem decapitation.

In October 2011, Solovyov handed over to representatives of the House of Romanov a resolution to terminate the investigation of the case. The official conclusion of the Investigative Committee of Russia, announced in October 2011, indicated that the investigation did not have documentary evidence of the involvement of Lenin or anyone else from the top leadership of the Bolsheviks in the execution of the royal family. Modern Russian historians point out the inconsistency of conclusions about the alleged non-involvement of the Bolshevik leaders in the murder based on the absence of documents of direct action in modern archives: Lenin practiced personally accepting and issuing the most drastic orders to the localities secretly and in the highest degree conspiratorially. According to A.N. Bokhanov, neither Lenin nor his entourage gave and would never have given written orders on an issue related to the murder of the royal family. In addition, A. N. Bokhanov noted that “many events in history are not reflected in documents of direct action,” which is not surprising. Historian-archivist V. M. Khrustalev, having analyzed the correspondence available to historians between various government departments of that period concerning representatives of the House of Romanov, wrote that it is quite logical to assume the conduct of “double office work” in the Bolshevik government, similar to the conduct of “double bookkeeping.” The director of the office of the House of Romanov, Alexander Zakatov, on behalf of the Romanovs, also commented on this resolution in such a way that the Bolshevik leaders could give verbal orders rather than written orders.

Having analyzed the attitude of the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet government to resolving the issue of the fate of the royal family, the investigation noted the extreme aggravation of the political situation in July 1918 in connection with a number of events, including the murder on July 6 by the left Socialist Revolutionary Ya. G. Blumkin of the German ambassador V. Mirbach with the aim of leading to the rupture of the Brest Peace Treaty and the uprising of the Left Social Revolutionaries. Under these conditions, the execution of the royal family could have a negative impact on further relations between the RSFSR and Germany, since Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters were German princesses. The possibility of extraditing one or more members of the royal family to Germany was not excluded in order to soften the severity of the conflict that arose as a result of the assassination of the ambassador. According to the investigation, the leaders of the Urals had a different position on this issue, the Presidium of the regional council of which was ready to destroy the Romanovs back in April 1918 during their transfer from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

V. M. Khrustalev wrote that putting a definitive end to the investigation into the circumstances of the murder of the royal family is hampered by the fact that historians and researchers still do not have the opportunity to study archival materials relating to the death of representatives of the Romanov dynasty, contained in the special storage facilities of the FSB, both central and regional level. The historian suggested that someone’s experienced hand purposefully “cleaned out” the archives of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), the board of the Cheka, the Ural Regional Executive Committee and the Yekaternburg Cheka for the summer and autumn of 1918. Looking through the scattered agendas of the Cheka meetings available to historians, Khrustalev came to the conclusion that documents were seized that mentioned the names of representatives of the Romanov dynasty. The archivist wrote that these documents could not be destroyed - they were probably transferred for storage to the Central Party Archive or “special storage facilities.” The funds of these archives were not available to researchers at the time the historian wrote his book.

The further fate of those involved in the shooting

Members of the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council:

• Beloborodov, Alexander Georgievich - in 1927 expelled from the CPSU (b) for participation in the Trotskyist opposition, reinstated in May 1930, expelled again in 1936. In August 1936 he was arrested, on February 8, 1938, by the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR he was sentenced to death, and executed the next day. In 1919, Beloborodov wrote: “...The basic rule when dealing with counter-revolutionaries is: those captured are not tried, but they are subject to mass reprisals.” G. Z. Ioffe notes that after some time Beloborodov’s rule regarding counter-revolutionaries began to be applied by some Bolsheviks against others; Beloborodov “apparently could no longer understand this. In the 30s, Beloborodov was repressed and executed. The circle is closed."
• Goloshchekin, Philip Isaevich - in 1925-1933 - secretary of the Kazakh regional committee of the CPSU (b); carried out violent measures aimed at changing the lifestyle of nomads and collectivization, which led to huge casualties. On October 15, 1939 he was arrested and executed on October 28, 1941.
• Didkovsky, Boris Vladimirovich - worked at the Ural State University, the Ural Geological Trust. On August 3, 1937, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR as an active participant in the anti-Soviet right-wing terrorist organization in the Urals. Shot. In 1956 he was rehabilitated. A mountain peak in the Urals is named after Didkovsky.
• Safarov, Georgy Ivanovich - in 1927, at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was expelled from the party “as an active participant in the Trotskyist opposition” and exiled to the city of Achinsk. After announcing a break with the opposition, by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was reinstated in the party. In the 1930s he was again expelled from the party and was arrested several times. In 1942 he was shot. Posthumously rehabilitated.
• Tolmachev, Nikolai Guryevich - in 1919, in a battle with the troops of General N.N. Yudenich near Luga, he fought while surrounded; To avoid being captured, he shot himself. He was buried on the Champ de Mars.

Direct executors:

• Yurovsky, Yakov Mikhailovich - died in 1938 in the Kremlin hospital. Yurovsky's daughter Rimma Yakovlevna Yurovskaya was repressed on false charges and was imprisoned from 1938 to 1956. Rehabilitated. Yurovsky's son, Alexander Yakovlevich Yurovsky, was arrested in 1952.
• Nikulin, Grigory Petrovich (Yurovsky’s assistant) - survived the purge, left memories (recording of the Radio Committee on May 12, 1964).
• Ermakov, Pyotr Zakharovich - retired in 1934, survived the purge.
• Medvedev (Kudrin), Mikhail Alexandrovich - survived the purge, before his death he left detailed memories of the events (December 1963). He died on January 13, 1964, and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
• Medvedev, Pavel Spiridonovich - on February 11, 1919 he was arrested by an agent of the White Guard criminal investigation department S.I. Alekseev. He died in prison on March 12, 1919, according to some sources, from typhus, according to others, from torture.

• Voikov, Pyotr Lazarevich - killed on June 7, 1927 in Warsaw by the white emigrant Boris Koverda. The Voikovskaya metro station in Moscow and a number of streets in cities of the USSR were named in honor of Voikov.

Perm murder:

• Myasnikov, Gavriil Ilyich - in the 1920s he joined the “worker opposition”, was repressed in 1923, fled from the USSR in 1928. Shot in 1945; according to other sources, he died in custody in 1946.

Canonization and church veneration of the royal family

In 1981, the royal family was glorified (canonized) by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and in 2000 by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Alternative theories

There are alternative versions regarding the death of the royal family. These include versions about the rescue of someone from the royal family and conspiracy theories. According to one of these theories, the murder of the royal family was ritual, carried out by “Jew-Masons,” as allegedly evidenced by “Kabbalistic signs” in the room where the execution took place. Some versions of this theory say that after the execution, the head of Nicholas II was separated from the body and preserved in alcohol. According to another, the execution was carried out on the orders of the German government after Nicholas’s refusal to create a pro-German monarchy in Russia led by Alexei (this theory is given in R. Wilton’s book).

The Bolsheviks announced to everyone immediately after the execution that Nicholas II had been killed, but at first the Soviet authorities were silent about the fact that his wife and children had also been shot. The secrecy of the murder and burial sites led to the fact that a number of people subsequently declared that they were one of the “miraculously escaped” family members. One of the most famous impostors was Anna Anderson, who pretended to be the miraculously surviving Anastasia. Several feature films have been made based on the story of Anna Anderson.

Rumors about the “miraculous salvation” of all or part of the royal family, or even the king himself, began to spread almost immediately after the execution. Thus, the adventurer B. N. Solovyov, who was the husband of Rasputin’s daughter Matryona, claimed that allegedly “the Emperor was saved by flying by plane to Tibet to visit the Dalai Lama,” and the witness Samoilov, with reference to the guard of the Ipatiev House, A. S. Varakushev, claimed, that supposedly the royal family was not shot, but “loaded into a carriage.”

American journalists A. Summers and T. Mangold in the 1970s. studied a previously unknown part of the investigation archives of 1918-1919, found in the 1930s. in the USA, and published the results of their investigation in 1976. In their opinion, N. A. Sokolov’s conclusions about the death of the entire royal family were made under pressure from A. V. Kolchak, who for some reasons found it beneficial to declare all family members dead. They consider the investigations and conclusions of other White Army investigators (A.P. Nametkin, I.A. Sergeev and A.F. Kirsta) more objective. In their (Summers and Mangold's) opinion, it is most likely that only Nicholas II and his heir were shot in Yekaterinburg, and Alexandra Fedorovna and her daughters were transported to Perm and their further fate is unknown. A. Summers and T. Mangold are inclined to believe that Anna Anderson really was Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Exhibitions

• Exhibition “The Death of the Family of Emperor Nicholas II. A century-long investigation." (May 25 - July 29, 2012, Exhibition Hall of the Federal Archives (Moscow); from July 10, 2013, Center for Traditional Folk Culture of the Middle Urals (Ekaterinburg)).

In art

The theme, unlike other revolutionary subjects (for example, “The Taking of Winter Palace” or “Lenin’s Arrival in Petrograd”) was of little demand in Soviet fine arts XX century. However, there is an early Soviet painting by V. N. Pchelin, “The Transfer of the Romanov Family to the Urals Council,” painted in 1927.

It is much more common in cinema, including in the films: “Nicholas and Alexandra” (1971), “The Regicide” (1991), “Rasputin” (1996), “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family" (2000), the television series "The White Horse" (1993). The film "Rasputin" begins with the scene of the execution of the royal family.

The play “House of Special Purpose” by Edward Radzinsky is dedicated to the same topic.

Historically, Russia is a monarchical state. First there were princes, then kings. The history of our state is old and diverse. Russia has known many monarchs with different characters, human and managerial qualities. However, it was the Romanov family that became the brightest representative Russian throne. The history of their reign goes back about three centuries. And the end of the Russian Empire is also inextricably linked with this surname.

Romanov family: history

The Romanovs, an old noble family, did not immediately have such a surname. For centuries they were first called Kobylins, a little bit later Koshkins, then Zakharyins. And only after more than 6 generations they acquired the surname Romanov.

For the first time, this noble family was allowed to approach the Russian throne by the marriage of Tsar Ivan the Terrible with Anastasia Zakharyina.

There is no direct connection between the Rurikovichs and the Romanovs. It has been established that Ivan III is the great-great-grandson of one of Andrei Kobyla’s sons, Fedor, on his mother’s side. While the Romanov family became a continuation of Fyodor’s other grandson, Zakhary.

However, this fact played a key role when in 1613, at the Zemsky Sobor, the grandson of Anastasia Zakharyina’s brother, Mikhail, was elected to reign. So the throne passed from the Rurikovichs to the Romanovs. After this, rulers of this family succeeded each other for three centuries. During this time, our country changed its form of power and became the Russian Empire.

Peter I became the first emperor. A last Nikolay II, who abdicated as a result February revolution 1917 and was shot with his family in July of the following year.

Biography of Nicholas II

In order to understand the reasons for the pitiful end of the imperial reign, it is necessary to take a closer look at the biography of Nikolai Romanov and his family:

1. Nicholas II was born in 1868. From childhood he was brought up in the best traditions of the royal court. From a young age he became interested in military affairs. From the age of 5 he took part in military training, parades and processions. Even before taking the oath, he had various ranks, including being a Cossack chieftain. As a result, the highest military rank of Nicholas became the rank of colonel. Nicholas came to power at the age of 27. Nicholas was an educated, intelligent monarch;
2. Nicholas's bride, a German princess who took the Russian name Alexandra Feodorovna, was 22 years old at the time of the wedding. The couple loved each other very much and treated each other reverently all their lives. However, those around him had a negative attitude towards the empress, suspecting that the autocrat was too dependent on his wife;
3. Nicholas's family had four daughters - Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia, and the youngest son, Alexei, was born - a possible heir to the throne. Unlike his strong and healthy sisters, Alexey was diagnosed with hemophilia. This meant that the boy could die from any scratch.

Why was the Romanov family shot?

Nikolai made several fatal mistakes, which ultimately led to a tragic end:

• The stampede on the Khodynka field is considered the first ill-considered mistake of Nikolai. In the first days of his reign, people went to Khodynska Square to buy gifts promised by the new emperor. The result was pandemonium and more than 1,200 people died. Nicholas remained indifferent to this event until the end of all the events dedicated to his coronation, which lasted for several more days. The people did not forgive him for such behavior and called him Bloody;
• During his reign, there were many strife and contradictions in the country. The Emperor understood that it was necessary to urgently take measures in order to raise the patriotism of Russians and unite them. Many believe that it was for this purpose that the Russo-Japanese War was launched, which as a result was lost, and Russia lost part of its territory;
• After the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, on the square in front of the Winter Palace, without the knowledge of Nicholas, the military shot people who had gathered for a rally. This event was called in history - “Bloody Sunday”;
• First world war The Russian state also entered carelessly. The conflict began in 1914 between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. The Emperor considered it necessary to stand up for the Balkan state, as a result of which Germany came to the defense of Austria-Hungary. The war dragged on, which no longer suited the military.

As a result, a provisional government was created in Petrograd. Nicholas knew about the mood of the people, but was unable to take any decisive action and signed a paper about his abdication.

The Provisional Government placed the family under arrest, first in Tsarskoye Selo, and then they were exiled to Tobolsk. After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the whole family was transported to Yekaterinburg and, by decision of the Bolshevik council, executed to prevent a return to royal power.

Remains of the royal family in modern times

After the execution, all the remains were collected and transported to the mines of Ganina Yama. It was not possible to burn the bodies, so they were thrown into the mine shafts. The next day, village residents discovered bodies floating at the bottom of the flooded mines and it became clear that reburial was necessary.

The remains were again loaded into the car. However, having driven away a little, she fell into the mud in the Porosenkov Log area. There they buried the dead, dividing the ashes into two parts.

The first part of the bodies was discovered in 1978. However, due to the long process of obtaining permission for excavations, it was possible to get to them only in 1991. Two bodies, presumably Maria and Alexei, were found in 2007 a little away from the road.

For many years different groups Scientists conducted many modern, high-tech examinations to determine the involvement of the remains in the royal family. As a result, the genetic similarity was proven, but some historians and the Russian Orthodox Church still disagree with these results.

Now the relics are reburied in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Living representatives of the genus

The Bolsheviks sought to exterminate as many representatives of the royal family as possible so that no one would even have the thought of returning to the previous power. However, many managed to escape abroad.

In the male line, living descendants descend from the sons of Nicholas I - Alexander and Mikhail. There are also descendants in the female line who originate from Ekaterina Ioannovna. For the most part, they all do not live on the territory of our state. However, representatives of the clan have created and are developing public and charitable organizations that operate in Russia as well.

Thus, the Romanov family is a symbol of a bygone empire for our country. Many are still arguing about whether it is possible to revive imperial power in the country and whether it is worth doing. Obviously, this page of our history has been turned, and its representatives are buried with appropriate honors.

Video: execution of the Romanov family

This video recreates the moment the Romanov family was captured and their subsequent execution:

The main condition for the presence of immortality is death itself.

Stanislav Jerzy Lec

The execution of the Romanov royal family on the night of July 17, 1918 is one of the most important events of the era of the civil war, the formation of Soviet power, as well as Russia’s exit from the First World War. The murder of Nicholas 2 and his family was largely predetermined by the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks. But in this story, not everything is as simple as it is usually said. In this article I will present all the facts that are known in this case in order to assess the events of those days.

Background of events

We should start with the fact that Nicholas 2 was not the last Russian emperor, as many believe today. He abdicated the throne (for himself and for his son Alexei) in favor of his brother, Mikhail Romanov. So he is the last emperor. This is important to remember; we will return to this fact later. Also, in most textbooks, the execution of the royal family is equated with the murder of the family of Nicholas 2. But these were not all Romanovs. To understand how many people we are talking about, I will give only data on the last Russian emperors:

• Nicholas 1 – 4 sons and 4 daughters.
• Alexander 2 – 6 sons and 2 daughters.
• Alexander 3 – 4 sons and 2 daughters.
• Nikolai 2 – son and 4 daughters.

That is, the family is very large, and anyone from the list above is a direct descendant of the imperial branch, and therefore a direct contender for the throne. But most of them also had children of their own...

Arrest of members of the royal family

Nicholas 2, having abdicated the throne, put forward fairly simple demands, the implementation of which was guaranteed by the Provisional Government. The requirements were the following:

• The emperor's safe transfer to Tsarskoe Selo to his family, where at that time Tsarevich Alexei was no longer there.
• The safety of the entire family during their stay in Tsarskoye Selo until Tsarevich Alexei’s complete recovery.
• Safety of the road to the northern ports of Russia, from where Nicholas 2 and his family must cross to England.
• After the end of the Civil War, the royal family will return to Russia and live in Livadia (Crimea).

These points are important to understand in order to see the intentions of Nicholas 2 and subsequently the Bolsheviks. The emperor abdicated the throne so that the current government would ensure his safe exit to England.

What is the role of the British government?

The provisional government of Russia, after receiving the demands of Nicholas 2, turned to England with the question of the latter’s consent to host the Russian monarch. A positive response was received. But here it is important to understand that the request itself was a formality. The fact is that at that time an investigation was underway against the royal family, during which time travel outside Russia was impossible. Therefore, England, by giving consent, did not risk anything at all. Something else is much more interesting. After the complete acquittal of Nicholas 2, the Provisional Government again makes a request to England, but this time more specific. This time the question was posed not abstractly, but concretely, because everything was ready for moving to the island. But then England refused.

Therefore, when today Western countries and people, shouting at every corner about innocent people killed, talk about the execution of Nicholas 2, this only causes a reaction of disgust at their hypocrisy. One word from the English government that they agree to accept Nicholas 2 and his family, and in principle there would be no execution. But they refused...

In the photo on the left is Nicholas 2, on the right is George 4, King of England. They were distant relatives and had obvious similarities in appearance.

When was the Romanov royal family executed?

Murder of Mikhail

After the October Revolution, Mikhail Romanov turned to the Bolsheviks with a request to remain in Russia as an ordinary citizen. This request was granted. But the last Russian emperor was not destined to live “in peace” for long. Already in March 1918 he was arrested. There is no reason for the arrest. Until now, not a single historian has been able to find a single historical document explaining the reason for the arrest of Mikhail Romanov.

After his arrest, on March 17 he was sent to Perm, where he lived for several months in a hotel. On the night of July 13, 1918, he was taken from the hotel and shot. This was the first victim of the Romanov family by the Bolsheviks. The official reaction of the USSR to this event was ambivalent:

• It was announced to its citizens that Mikhail had shamefully fled Russia abroad. Thus, the authorities got rid of unnecessary questions, and, most importantly, received a legitimate reason to tighten the maintenance of the remaining members of the royal family.
• It was announced to foreign countries through the media that Mikhail was missing. They say he went out for a walk on the night of July 13 and did not return.

Execution of the family of Nicholas 2

The backstory here is very interesting. Immediately after the October Revolution, the Romanov royal family was arrested. The investigation did not reveal the guilt of Nikolai 2, so the charges were dropped. At the same time, it was impossible to let the family go to England (the British refused), and the Bolsheviks really didn’t want to send them to Crimea, because the “whites” were very close there. And throughout almost the entire Civil War, Crimea was under the control of the white movement, and all the Romanovs located on the peninsula escaped by moving to Europe. Therefore, they decided to send them to Tobolsk. The fact of the secrecy of the shipment is also noted in his diaries by Nikolai 2, who writes that they would be taken to ONE of the cities in the interior of the country.

Until March, the royal family lived in Tobolsk relatively calmly, but on March 24 an investigator arrived here, and on March 26 a reinforced detachment of Red Army soldiers arrived. In fact, from that time on, enhanced security measures began. The basis is the imaginary flight of Mikhail.

Subsequently, the family was transported to Yekaterinburg, where they settled in the Ipatiev house. On the night of July 17, 1918, the Romanov royal family was shot. Their servants were shot along with them. In total, the following died that day:

• Nikolay 2,
• His wife, Alexandra
• The emperor's children are Tsarevich Alexei, Maria, Tatiana and Anastasia.
• Family doctor – Botkin
• Maid – Demidova
• Personal chef – Kharitonov
• Lackey - Troupe.

In total, 10 people were shot. According to the official version, the corpses were thrown into a mine and filled with acid.

Who killed the family of Nicholas 2?

I have already said above that starting in March, the security of the royal family was significantly increased. After moving to Yekaterinburg it was already a full-fledged arrest. The family was settled in Ipatiev’s house, and a guard was presented to them, the head of the garrison of which was Avdeev. On July 4, almost the entire guard was replaced, as was its commander. Subsequently, it was these people who were accused of murdering the royal family:

• Yakov Yurovsky. He directed the execution.
• Grigory Nikulin. Yurovsky's assistant.
• Peter Ermakov. Chief of the Emperor's guard.
• Mikhail Medvedev-Kudrin. Representative of the Cheka.

These are the main people, but there were also ordinary performers. It is noteworthy that they all significantly survived this event. Most subsequently took part in the Second World War and received a USSR pension.

Massacre of the rest of the family

Beginning in March 1918, other members of the royal family were gathered in Alapaevsk (Perm province). In particular, the following are imprisoned here: Princess Elizaveta Feodorovna, princes John, Konstantin and Igor, as well as Vladimir Paley. The latter was the grandson of Alexander 2, but had a different surname. Subsequently, they were all transported to Vologda, where on July 19, 1918 they were thrown alive into a mine.

The latest events in the destruction of the Romanov dynastic family date back to January 19, 1919, when princes Nikolai and Georgiy Mikhailovich, Pavel Alexandrovich and Dmitry Konstantinovich were shot in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Reaction to the murder of the Romanov imperial family

The murder of the family of Nicholas 2 had the greatest resonance, which is why it needs to be studied. There are many sources indicating that when Lenin was informed about the murder of Nicholas 2, he did not even seem to react to it. It is impossible to verify such judgments, but you can refer to archival documents. In particular, we are interested in Protocol No. 159 of the meeting of the Council of People's Commissars of July 18, 1918. The protocol is very short. We heard the question of the murder of Nicholas 2. We decided to take it into account. That's it, just take note. There are no other documents regarding this case! This is completely absurd. It’s the 20th century, but not a single document regarding such an important historical event has been preserved, except for one note “Take note”...

However, the main response to murder is investigation. They started

Investigation into the murder of the family of Nicholas 2

The Bolshevik leadership, as expected, began an investigation into the murder of the family. The official investigation began on July 21. She carried out the investigation quite quickly, since Kolchak’s troops were approaching Yekaterinburg. The main conclusion of this official investigation is that there was no murder. Only Nicholas 2 was shot by the verdict of the Yekaterinburg Council. But there are a number of very weak points that still cast doubt on the veracity of the investigation:

• The investigation began a week later. In Russia, the former emperor is killed, and the authorities react to this a week later! Why was there this week of pause?
• Why conduct an investigation if the execution happened on the orders of the Soviets? In this case, on July 17, the Bolsheviks were supposed to report that “the execution of the Romanov royal family took place on the orders of the Yekaterinburg Council. Nikolai 2 was shot, but his family was not touched.”
• There are no supporting documents. Even today, all references to the decision of the Yekaterinburg Council are oral. Even in Stalin’s times, when millions were shot, documents remained that said “the decision of the troika and so on”...

On the 20th of July 1918, Kolchak’s army entered Yekaterinburg, and one of the first orders was to begin an investigation into the tragedy. Today everyone is talking about investigator Sokolov, but before him there were 2 more investigators with the names Nametkin and Sergeev. No one has officially seen their reports. And Sokolov’s report was published only in 1924. According to the investigator, the entire royal family was shot. By this time (back in 1921), the same data was announced by the Soviet leadership.

The order of destruction of the Romanov dynasty

In the story of the execution of the royal family, it is very important to follow the chronology, otherwise you can very easily get confused. And the chronology here is as follows - the dynasty was destroyed in the order of contenders for inheriting the throne.

Who was the first contender for the throne? That's right, Mikhail Romanov. I remind you once again - back in 1917, Nicholas 2 abdicated the throne for himself and for his son in favor of Mikhail. Therefore, he was the last emperor, and he was the first contender for the throne in the event of the restoration of the Empire. Mikhail Romanov was killed on July 13, 1918.

Who was next in line of succession? Nicholas 2 and his son, Tsarevich Alexei. The candidacy of Nicholas 2 is controversial; in the end, he abdicated power on his own. Although in his regard everyone could have played it the other way, because in those days almost all laws were violated. But Tsarevich Alexei was a clear contender. Father didn't have legal law give up the throne for his son. As a result, the entire family of Nicholas 2 was shot on July 17, 1918.

Next in line were all the other princes, of whom there were quite a few. Most of them were collected in Alapaevsk and killed on July 1, 9, 1918. As they say, estimate the speed: 13, 17, 19. If we were talking about random unrelated murders, then such similarity would simply not exist. In less than 1 week, almost all the contenders for the throne were killed, and in order of succession, but history today considers these events in isolation from each other, and absolutely not paying attention to controversial areas.

Alternative versions of the tragedy

A key alternative version of this historical event is outlined in the book “The Murder That Never Happened” by Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers. It states the hypothesis that there was no execution. In general terms the situation is as follows...

• The reasons for the events of those days should be sought in the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty between Russia and Germany. Argument - despite the fact that the secrecy stamp on the documents had long been removed (it was 60 years old, that is, there should have been publication in 1978), there is not a single full version this document. Indirect confirmation of this is that the “executions” began precisely after the signing of the peace treaty.
• It is a well-known fact that the wife of Nicholas 2, Alexandra, was a relative of the German Kaiser Wilhelm 2. It is assumed that Wilhelm 2 introduced a clause into the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, according to which Russia undertakes to ensure the safe exit to Germany of Alexandra and her daughters.
• As a result, the Bolsheviks handed over the women to Germany, and left Nicholas 2 and his son Alexei as hostages. Subsequently, Tsarevich Alexei grew up into Alexei Kosygin.

Stalin gave a new twist to this version. It is a well-known fact that one of his favorites was Alexey Kosygin. Big reasons There is no way to believe this theory, but there is one detail. It is known that Stalin always called Kosygin nothing more than “prince.”

Canonization of the royal family

In 1981, the Russian Orthodox Church abroad canonized Nicholas 2 and his family as great martyrs. In 2000, this happened in Russia. Today, Nicholas 2 and his family are great martyrs and innocent victims, and therefore saints.

A few words about Ipatiev’s house

The Ipatiev House is the place where the family of Nicholas 2 was imprisoned. There is a very reasoned hypothesis that it was possible to escape from this house. Moreover, in contrast to the unfounded alternative version, there is one significant fact. So, the general version is that there was an underground passage from the basement of Ipatiev’s house, which no one knew about, and which led to a factory located nearby. Evidence of this has already been provided in our days. Boris Yeltsin gave the order to demolish the house and build a church in its place. This was done, but one of the bulldozers during work fell into this very underground passage. There is no other evidence of the possible escape of the royal family, but the fact itself is interesting. At the very least, it leaves room for thought.

Today, the house has been demolished, and the Temple on the Blood was erected in its place.

Summarizing

In 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized the family of Nicholas 2 as victims of repression. Case is closed.

Novikova Inna 07/06/2015 at 14:33

A sad date in the history of Russia is approaching -execution of the royal family. Despite investigations, the Russian Orthodox Church and members of the imperial familydid not admit that those buried in1998- m in the Peter and Paul Cathedral the remains belong to the family of NicholasII.Why? About the secrets of the death of the Romanovswebsitesaid Charge d'Affaires of the Russian Imperial House German Lukyanov.

- German Yurievich, in19 '98in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg The remains of the royal martyrs were buried. But until now the Church and members of the imperial family have not recognized that these are their remains. Tell me, what are the problems? What situation now, is there any news?

On July 17, 1918, in the city of Yekaterinburg, in a special purpose house, the royal family was executed by verdict of the Ural Soviet of Deputies. After the Emperor abdicated the throne, he and his family were arrested.

They were under arrest from March to the end of July 1918, then they were exiled to Tobolsk, and from Tobolsk they were transferred by decision of the central authorities of the Bolshevik leadership to Yekaterinburg. Then the verdict took place, and the whole family was destroyed. It was murder without a statute of limitations.

After the fall of the communist regime, when the process of returning the Imperial House to Russia began, the head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, raised the question of investigating the circumstances of the death of her relatives - Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family.

I dealt with this issue as a lawyer for the Grand Duchess - first Leonida Georgievna, now Maria Vladimirovna. First, the question was raised about whether the death of members of the royal family was registered. Numerous requests were made to all organizations in the city of St. Petersburg and the city of Yekaterinburg. The answers were negative; the death of these persons was not confirmed.

Everyone knows that when a person is born, he has a birth certificate, when he dies, he must have a death certificate. There was a special order in the royal houses. In 1904, the son of the sovereign, Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, was born, who was named Alexei. A manifesto was issued: “By the grace of God, We, the Emperor Autocrat of Russia, the Tsar of Poland, the Grand Duke of Finland, and so on, and so on, announce to all our subjects, on the 30th day of this, our dear wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, was safely delivered from her burden by the birth of our son, named Alexey."

But when he and other royal persons were shot, there was no registration of the civil status of death. And so the Grand Duchesses Maria Vladimirovna and Leonida Georgievna dealt with this issue. Applications for registration were officially submitted to the Civil Registry Office of the city of St. Petersburg.

The facts of death of members of the royal family were registered in 1996. Here is the death certificate that Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov died on July 17, 1918 at the age of 50, which was recorded in the death register of 1996 on July 10 as number 151. The cause of death was the city of Yekaterinburg, a special purpose house, shot. This is the most important document.

- In general, the executions were somehow formalized"enemies of the people" of noble blood and ordinary people

- Tens of thousands were shot by the Bolsheviks, and they destroyed the entire flower of the nation. The Bolsheviks held tribunals and executed people without trial or investigation. Members of the Russian Imperial House are a special case. There was a telegram to Moscow, where it was written that the emperor was shot by the verdict of the Ural Soviet of Deputies, since he was guilty of countless bloody violence against the Russian people.

The highest body - the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - considered this message and recognized this execution as correct. The head of the Soviet state, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars, which was chaired by Lenin, made an extraordinary announcement about the execution of Nikolai Romanov by the verdict of the Ural Soviet of Deputies. The Council of People's Commissars took note of this.

- Do you have a collection of all the documents?

Yes, everything regarding this issue. The head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, was studying and collecting all the necessary documents in order to raise the question of the legal rehabilitation of her august relatives, members of the royal family.

- Who should have made the decision on rehabilitation?

- According to the law on victims of political repression in force at that time, the decision was made by the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. When everything was served Required documents, The Prosecutor General's Office reviewed this application and denied rehabilitation, stating that there were no grounds for rehabilitation. Since rights and freedoms were not violated, and the Soviet totalitarian Bolshevik state had nothing to do with the death of members of the royal family. This was already in 2005.

After this, the Grand Duchess went to court to recognize the decision to refuse to rehabilitate members of the royal family as illegal and to oblige the authorities of our state to consider this issue, and yet the members of the royal family were recognized as victims of political repression. Because there is a law that states that political repression is measures taken by the state against individuals for belonging to the exploitative class, when measures are taken in the form of restriction of freedom, deprivation of life, restriction of rights and freedoms.

There is a telegram to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Lenin, and the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Sverdlov: “In view of the approach of the enemy to Yekaterinburg and the discovery by the Emergency Commission of a large White Guard conspiracy aimed at kidnapping the former Tsar and his family. Period. The documents are in our hands. Period. By resolution of the Presidium of the Regional Council on the night of Nikolai Romanov was shot on July 16. His family was evacuated to a safe place."

The Bolsheviks misinformed about the evacuation of the family, because they understood that it could not be published. Because even in that harsh time, the people of Russia and foreign countries would not have accepted this.

In this regard, the following notice is issued: “In view of the approach of counter-revolutionary gangs to the red capital of the Urals and the possibility that the crowned executioner will escape the people's court, a conspiracy of the White Guards who tried to kidnap him himself has been revealed, the documents found will be published. The Presidium of the Regional Council, fulfilling the will of the revolution, decided to shoot the former Tsar Nikolai Romanov, comma, guilty of countless bloody violence against the Russian people on the night of July 16, 18."

But in fact, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the royal family was executed in the basement of the Ipatiev house, where they were kept in custody.

After the execution, the bodies were taken away and attempts were made to destroy the bodies. They were doused with sulfuric acid. The commandant of the special purpose house, Yurovsky, wrote that two bodies were burned, and then they were all discovered. The heads were allegedly shown to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in the Kremlin. There is a version that there is a special room, there was something there. There is a list of what was discovered, but it is still classified for the future. No one still knows what was discovered there.

The question of the authenticity of the discovered remains remains open. The Russian Orthodox Church doubts their authenticity. The Russian Imperial House, the head of the Russian Imperial House, Princess Maria Vladimirovna, supports their position. Now there are quite accurate methods of medical genetic research, but science is moving forward, after some time the methods can be improved and give different results, new circumstances may open up. The Church cannot make a mistake in this matter; it has no right.

“We can only hope that the Lord knows the names and whose remains these are, as well as all the other innocent victims.” But can we hope to know this truth?

- A long way has been traveled, a lot of work has been done and historical facts have been established, including through judicial means. The presidium made a historic decision: “From the documents examined by the court, it is clear that the Romanovs were deprived of their lives not as a result of someone committing a criminal crime. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov and members of their family were detained and were shot on behalf of the state.

The use of such a repressive measure was due to the fact that the former Russian emperor, his wife and children, members of the Russian imperial house, from the point of view of the state authorities of the RSFSR, on class, social and religious grounds, posed a danger to the Soviet state and political system." Here is the court's conclusion .

And the Prosecutor General’s Office believed that criminal offenses had been committed against them. They were captured and killed by criminals. Now, with this court decision, the issue of rehabilitation is closed. The honest, good name of Sovereign Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich has been restored.

- But the most important question remains open.

Yes, it's open. This complex issue, so not everything is solved right away. Now there is a period of construction and growth of our civil society. The country has embarked on a democratic path of development. According to the Constitution, Russia is a legal state. We have all the mechanisms, both legal and political, to ensure that peace and harmony reign in society.

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In this case, we will talk about those gentlemen, thanks to whom, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, there was atrocity in Yekaterinburg The Romanov royal family was killed. These executioners have one name - regicides. Some of them made the decision, while others carried it out. As a result of this, Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and their children died: Grand Duchesses Anastasia, Maria, Olga, Tatiana and Tsarevich Alexei. The service personnel were also shot along with them. This is the family’s personal cook Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov, chamberlain Alexey Egorovich Trupp, room girl Anna Demidova and family doctor Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin.

Criminals

The terrible crime was preceded by a meeting of the Presidium of the Urals Council, held on July 12, 1918. It was there that the decision was made to execute the royal family. A detailed plan was also developed for both the crime itself and the destruction of corpses, that is, concealing traces of the destruction of innocent people.

The meeting was headed by the chairman of the Urals Council, member of the presidium of the regional committee of the RCP (b) Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov (1891-1938). Together with him, the decision was made by: the military commissar of Yekaterinburg Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin (1876-1941), the chairman of the regional Cheka Fyodor Nikolaevich Lukoyanov (1894-1947), the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Ekaterinburg Worker" Georgy Ivanovich Safarov (1891-1942), the supply commissar of the Ural Council Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov (1888-1927), commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (1878-1938).

The Bolsheviks called the house of engineer Ipatiev “a house of special purpose.” It was here that the Romanov royal family was kept in May-July 1918 after it was transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.

But you have to be a very naive person to think that middle-level managers took responsibility and independently made the most important political decision to execute the royal family. They found it possible only to coordinate it with the chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (1885-1919). This is exactly how the Bolsheviks presented everything in their time.

Here and there, in Lenin’s party, discipline was ironclad. Decisions came only from the very top, and lower-level employees carried them out unquestioningly. Therefore, we can say with full responsibility that the instructions were given directly by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who was sitting in the silence of the Kremlin office. Naturally, he discussed this issue with Sverdlov and the main Ural Bolshevik Evgeniy Alekseevich Preobrazhensky (1886-1937).

The latter, of course, was aware of all the decisions, although he was absent from Yekaterinburg on the bloody date of the execution. At this time, he took part in the work of the V All-Russian Congress of Soviets in Moscow, and then left for Kursk and returned to the Urals only in the last days of July 1918.

But, in any case, Ulyanov and Preobrazhensky cannot be officially blamed for the death of the Romanov family. Sverdlov bears indirect responsibility. After all, he imposed the “agreed” resolution. Such a soft-hearted leader. I resignedly took note of the decision of the grassroots organization and readily scribbled the usual formal reply on a piece of paper. Only a 5-year-old child could believe this.

The royal family in the basement of the Ipatiev house before execution

Now let's talk about the performers. About those villains who committed terrible sacrilege by raising their hands against God’s anointed and his family. To date, the exact list of killers is unknown. No one can name the number of criminals. There is an opinion that Latvian riflemen took part in the execution, since the Bolsheviks believed that Russian soldiers would not shoot at the Tsar and his family. Other researchers insist on the Hungarians who guarded the arrested Romanovs.

However, there are names that appear on all the lists of a wide variety of researchers. This is the commandant of the “House of Special Purpose” Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky, who led the execution. His deputy Grigory Petrovich Nikulin (1895-1965). The commander of the royal family's security Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov (1884-1952) and Cheka employee Mikhail Aleksandrovich Medvedev (Kudrin) (1891-1964).

These four people were directly involved in the execution of representatives of the House of Romanov. They carried out the decision of the Ural Council. At the same time, they showed amazing cruelty, since they not only shot at absolutely defenseless people, but also finished them off with bayonets, and then doused them with acid so that the bodies could not be recognized.

Each one will be rewarded according to his deeds

Organizers

There is an opinion that God sees everything and punishes the villains for what they have done. Regicides are among the most brutal part of the criminal elements. Their goal is to seize power. They walk towards her through the corpses, not at all embarrassed by this. At the same time, people are dying who are not at all to blame for the fact that they received their crowned title by inheritance. As for Nicholas II, this man was no longer emperor at the time of his death, since he voluntarily renounced the crown.

Moreover, there is no way to justify the death of his family and staff. What motivated the villains? Of course, rabid cynicism, disregard for human lives, lack of spirituality and rejection of Christian norms and rules. The most terrible thing is that, having committed a terrible crime, these gentlemen were proud of what they had done for the rest of their lives. They willingly told journalists, schoolchildren and simply idle listeners about everything.

But let’s return to God and trace the life path of those who doomed innocent people to a terrible death for the sake of an irrepressible desire to rule over others.

Ulyanov and Sverdlov

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. We all know him as the leader of the world proletariat. However, this people's leader was splashed to the top of his head with human blood. After the execution of the Romanovs, he lived only a little over 5 years. He died of syphilis, losing his mind. This is the most terrible punishment of heavenly powers.

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov. He left this world at the age of 33, 9 months after the crime committed in Yekaterinburg. In the city of Orel, he was severely beaten by workers. The very ones for whose rights he supposedly stood up. With multiple fractures and injuries, he was taken to Moscow, where he died 8 days later.

These are the two main criminals directly responsible for the death of the Romanov family. The regicides were punished and died not in old age, surrounded by children and grandchildren, but in the prime of life. As for the other organizers of the crime, here the heavenly forces delayed punishment, but God’s judgment was completed anyway, giving everyone what they deserved.

Goloshchekin and Beloborodov (right)

Philip Isaevich Goloshchekin- chief security officer of Yekaterinburg and adjacent territories. It was he who went to Moscow at the end of June, where he received verbal instructions from Sverdlov regarding the execution of crowned persons. After this, he returned to the Urals, where the Presidium of the Urals Council was hastily assembled, and a decision was made to secretly execute the Romanovs.

In mid-October 1939, Philip Isaevich was arrested. He was accused of anti-state activities and an unhealthy attraction to little boys. This perverted gentleman was shot at the end of October 1941. Goloshchekin outlived the Romanovs by 23 years, but retribution still overtook him.

Chairman of the Urals Council Alexander Georgievich Beloborodov- in modern times, this is the chairman of the regional Duma. It was he who headed the meeting at which the decision was made to execute the royal family. His signature was next to the word “affirm.” If we approach this issue officially, then it is he who bears the main responsibility for the murder of innocent people.

Beloborodov had been a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1907, joining it as a minor boy after the 1905 revolution. In all the positions that his senior comrades entrusted to him, he showed himself to be an exemplary and efficient worker. The best proof July 1918 serves this purpose.

After the execution of the crowned persons, Alexander Georgievich flew very high. In March 1919, his candidacy was considered for the post of president of the young Soviet republic. But preference was given to Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (1875-1946), since he knew peasant life well, and our “hero” was born into a working-class family.

But the former chairman of the Urals Council was not offended. He was appointed head of the political department of the Red Army. In 1921, he became the deputy of Felix Dzherzhinsky, who headed the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. In 1923 he replaced him in this high post. True, a further brilliant career did not develop.

In December 1927, Beloborodov was removed from his post and exiled to Arkhangelsk. Since 1930 he worked as a middle manager. In August 1936 he was arrested by NKVD workers. In February 1938, by decision of the military board, Alexander Georgievich was shot. At the time of his death he was 46 years old. After the death of the Romanovs, the main culprit did not live even 20 years. In 1938, his wife Franziska Viktorovna Yablonskaya was also shot.

Safarov and Voikov (right)

Georgy Ivanovich Safarov- editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Ekaterinburg Worker". This Bolshevik with pre-revolutionary experience was an ardent supporter of the execution of the Romanov family, although she did nothing wrong to him. He lived well until 1917 in France and Switzerland. He came to Russia together with Ulyanov and Zinoviev in a “sealed carriage.”

After the crime committed, he worked in Turkestan, and then in the executive committee of the Comintern. Then he became editor-in-chief of Leningradskaya Pravda. In 1927, he was expelled from the party and sentenced to 4 years of exile in the city of Achinsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory). In 1928, the party card was returned and again sent to work in the Comintern. But after the murder of Sergei Kirov at the end of 1934, Safarov finally lost confidence.

He was again exiled to Achinsk, and in December 1936 he was sentenced to 5 years in the camps. Since January 1937, Georgy Ivanovich served his sentence in Vorkuta. He performed the duties of a water carrier there. He walked around in a prisoner's pea coat, belted with a rope. His family abandoned him after his conviction. For the former Bolshevik-Leninist, this was a severe moral blow.

After the end of his prison term, Safarov was not released. The time was difficult, wartime, and someone apparently decided that Ulyanov’s former comrade-in-arms had nothing to do behind the lines of the Soviet troops. He was shot by decision of a special commission on July 27, 1942. This “hero” outlived the Romanovs by 24 years and 10 days. He died at 51, having lost both his freedom and his family at the end of his life.

Pyotr Lazarevich Voikov- main supplier of the Urals. He was closely involved in food issues. How could he get food in 1919? Naturally, he took them away from the peasants and merchants who did not leave Yekaterinburg. With his tireless activities he brought the region to complete impoverishment. It was good that the troops of the White Army arrived, otherwise people would have started to die of hunger.

This gentleman also came to Russia in a “sealed carriage,” but not with Ulyanov, but with Anatoly Lunacharsky (the first People's Commissar of Education). Voikov was at first a Menshevik, but quickly figured out which way the wind was blowing. At the end of 1917, he broke with his shameful past and joined the RCP(b).

Pyotr Lazarevich not only raised his hand, voting for the death of the Romanovs, but also took an active part in hiding the traces of the crime. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​dousing the bodies with sulfuric acid. Since he was in charge of all the city’s warehouses, he personally signed the invoice for receiving this very acid. By his order, transport was also allocated for transporting bodies, shovels, picks, and crowbars. The business owner is in charge of what you want.

Pyotr Lazarevich liked activities related to material values. Since 1919 he was engaged consumer cooperation, while serving as deputy chairman of the Central Union. Part-time, he organized the sale abroad of treasures of the House of Romanov and museum valuables of the Diamond Fund, the Armory Chamber, and private collections requisitioned from exploiters.

Priceless works of art and jewelry went to the black market, since at that time no one officially dealt with the young Soviet state. Hence the ridiculous prices that were given for items that had unique historical value.

In October 1924, Voikov left as plenipotentiary envoy to Poland. This was already big politics, and Pyotr Lazarevich began to settle into a new field with enthusiasm. But the poor guy was out of luck. On June 7, 1927, he was shot by Boris Kaverda (1907-1987). The Bolshevik terrorist fell at the hands of another terrorist belonging to the white emigrant movement. Retribution came almost 9 years after the death of the Romanovs. At the time of his death, our next “hero” was 38 years old.

Fedor Nikolaevich Lukoyanov- chief security officer of the Urals. He voted for the execution of the royal family, therefore he is one of the organizers of the crime. But in subsequent years this “hero” did not show himself in any way. The thing is that from 1919 he began to suffer from attacks of schizophrenia. Therefore, Fyodor Nikolaevich devoted his entire life to journalism. He worked for various newspapers, and died in 1947 at the age of 53, 29 years after the murder of the Romanov family.

Performers

As for the direct perpetrators of the bloody crime, God’s court treated them much more leniently than the organizers. They were forced people and were just following orders. Therefore, they have less guilt. At least that’s what you might think if you trace the fateful path of each criminal.

The main perpetrator of the terrible murder of defenseless women and men, as well as a sick boy. He boasted that he personally shot Nicholas II. However, his subordinates also applied for this role.

Yakov Yurovsky

After the crime was committed, he was taken to Moscow and sent to work for the Cheka. Then, after the liberation of Yekaterinburg from the white troops, Yurovsky returned to the city. Received the post of chief security officer of the Urals.

In 1921 he was transferred to Gokhran and began to live in Moscow. Was engaged in accounting of material assets. After that, he worked a little at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.

In 1923 there was a sharp decline. Yakov Mikhailovich was appointed director of the Krasny Bogatyr plant. That is, our hero began to manage the production of rubber shoes: boots, galoshes, boots. Quite a strange profile after security and financial activities.

In 1928, Yurovsky was transferred to director of the Polytechnic Museum. This is a long building near the Bolshoi Theater. In 1938, the main perpetrator of the murder died of an ulcer at the age of 60. He outlived his victims by 20 years and 16 days.

But apparently regicides bring a curse on their offspring. This “hero” had three children. The eldest daughter Rimma Yakovlevna (1898-1980) and two younger sons.

The daughter joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and headed the youth organization (Komsomol) of Yekaterinburg. Since 1926 at party work. She made a good career in this field in the city of Voronezh in 1934-1937. Then she was transferred to Rostov-on-Don, where she was arrested in 1938. She stayed in the camps until 1946.

His son Alexander Yakovlevich (1904-1986) was also in prison. He was arrested in 1952, but, however, was soon released. But trouble happened to my grandchildren. All the boys died tragically. Two fell from the roof of the house, two were burned during the fire. The girls died in infancy. Yurovsky's niece Maria suffered the most. She had 11 children. Only 1 boy survived into adolescence. His mother abandoned him. The child was adopted by strangers.

Concerning Nikulina, Ermakova And Medvedev (Kudrina), then these gentlemen lived to old age. They worked, were honorably retired, and then buried with dignity. But regicides always get what they deserve. These three have escaped their well-deserved punishment on earth, but there is still judgment in heaven.

Grave of Grigory Petrovich Nikulin

After death, each soul rushes to heaven, hoping that the angels will let it into the Kingdom of Heaven. So the souls of the murderers rushed to the Light. But then a dark personality appeared in front of each of them. She politely took the sinner by the elbow and nodded unequivocally in the direction opposite to Paradise.

There, in the heavenly haze, a black mouth could be seen in the Underworld. And next to him stood disgusting grinning faces, nothing like heavenly angels. These are devils, and they have only one job - to put a sinner on a hot frying pan and fry him forever over low heat.

In conclusion, it should be noted that violence always begets violence. The one who commits a crime himself becomes a victim of criminals. A clear proof of this is the fate of the regicides, about whom we tried to tell in as much detail as possible in our sad story.

Egor Laskutnikov